How do we transition between techniques utilizing effective questions?

 Are all questions the same?

      Many are often surprised to hear that humans share almost 95% of their DNA with a banana. If you say this to someone, they may stand aghast at the mere thought that they, a highly intelligent, sentinel being, could be remotely similar to a soft yellow fruit. Yet the fact remains that only a mere 5% of genetic material stands between you and that splotched oblong pile of produce in your crisper.

 

      Think about Legos. How many different things can you build with the same pile of Legos? I'm sure some diligent scientist somewhere crunched the numbers, but if I had to guess, the possibilities would be seemingly endless. No matter what you were to build, the fact remains that each creation would still be made with the same Legos. Just like DNA and all living things, no matter how different they may seem on the outside, they are still made of the same material- it's just presented differently. Just like you and that banana.

      Similar to bananas and DNA, infinite questions can be posed from the same materials if you will. Although one could argue that nearly all questions are posed in a universal nature (with only the content of the question being changed) most would tend to agree that questions differ from one extent or another. I can deliver infinite questions in the same format, but each question I pose is unique with its own set of acceptable answers. For example, I can ask what the Valley of Ashes in The Great Gatsby symbolizes to readers just as I can ask what the painting symbolizes in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorain Gray. They are not the same question, but they follow identical format-- same "Legos," different sculptures.

 

 

What is the coolest teacher “question tip” you want to incorporate?

      I love asking questions. I feel as though that is the only way learning can be accomplished in the classroom. One of my biggest faults however, is that I tend to ask questions that solicit recall prompting. I often catch myself asking students such basic questions so much that I sometimes skimp on those deep, thoughtful questions. I would definitely suggest asking more questions that are open-ended and lead to "playground" discourse among students.

 

Why Would Asking Questions at Higher levels of Cognition Matter?

      -for the same reason that teaching at higher-level of cognition matters. Our goal as educators is not to disperse content, its to illicit thinking, develop student thinking ability and teach students how to apply what they learn to other contexts. When I have students rank laying hens based on their productive ability, the exercise has surprisingly little to do with chickens, and so much more to do with making decisions and intelligently substantiating their claims. Questions must also appeal to those skills rather than get students to repeat information back to you. Otherwise, they only know what to think and not how to think.

 

What is Student Agency or Student Voice?

      According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word "agency" is defined as "the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power." With this, we can easily define student agency as giving students the capacity or state of acting or of exerting power over their learning. This concept is somewhat synonymous with student autonomy. When you examine yourself as being a producer of student learning, and your students as your consumers. it only makes sense that students be given a say in what their learning consists of. If not what they learn, students should at the very least have a say in how they learn.