125: Asking More Engaging Questions

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Taxonomy of Personal Engagement:
  1. Interest – student appears to be attentive, may like the subject
  2. Engaging – student actively participates in learning tasks
  3. Committing –  students are actively involved/engaged in material, find it hard to move on to other topics
  4. Internalizing – student “gets it”, sees connections between learning and other experiences
  5. Interpreting –  student wants to talk about implications and opinions related to learning
  6. Evaluating – student “owns” the knowledge, may ask questions to check their understandings
 
Using Taxonomy of Personal Engagement to Design Questions:
  1. Interest – What questions will I ask to attract students’ attention?
  2. Engaging – What questions will I ask to get students more actively involved in discussion? that signal that I value their ideas?
  3. Committing – What questions will I ask that will get students to take on responsibility for line(s) of inquiry?
  4. Internalizing – What questions will I ask that will get students to relate their prior experiences, their feelings and opinions to targeted content material?
  5. Interpreting – What questions will I ask that will invite them to express their understanding of their own worlds in relationship to the world of the subject matter?  What opportunities will students to ask questions about their new understandings?
  6. Evaluating – What questions will I ask that will let students try our their new thinking in new media?

 

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The taxonomy of personal engagement creates and visualizes a road map for  different types of affective responses toward new learnings.   The taxonomy of personal engagement can help teachers consider what affective response they would like students to have with material and to design questions to stimulate these responses.  Using this taxonomy can help teachers design students that get students more engaged in learning and that stimulate students to ask more questions.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards and develop aligned learning targets.
  • Decide which levels of personal engagement are desired for each learning target.
  • Design questions aligned to learning targets and selected levels of personal engagement.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Ask students questions designed for different learning targets and for different levels of personal engagement.
  • Observe students’ responses to see if the questions are stimulating the expected levels of engagement. Use observations to fine tune questions strategies.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Ask students what types of questions stimulate different levels of personal engagement.   Ask for characteristics and examples.  Use this feedback to design better questions.
  • Give students topics and ask them to design questions at various levels of cognitive engagement.  Use these questions to facilitate discussions.

 

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124: Teaching Students To Generate Questions

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Reasons Why Students Struggle to Generate & Share Own Questions:
  1. Relationship between perceived (and actual) academic ability & question asking
    • the more students need help, the more reluctant they are to ask for it
    • the more competent students are, the more likely they are to ask for help when needed
    • the lower the achievement scores, the less likely the student is to ask questions
  2. Relationship between students’ grade level in school & question asking
    • as students advance in their careers, the trends above get worse or better creating a wider and wider achievement gap in asking questions
    • low achieving students ask even less questions
    • high achievement students learn to ask better questions and direct them to the right people
  3. Relationship between student value on asking question & question asking
    • when students like asking questions and find them helpful to learning, they tend to ask questions
  4. Relationship between teacher relatedness with student & question asking
    • teachers ask more questions of those they feel more connected to
Strategies to Meet Challenges of Question Asking
  1. Create safe environment that values & leverages mistakes
  2. Engage students in question: Do the benefits of asking questions outweigh the costs?
  3. Provide instruction on how to ask questions
  4. Use cooperative learning strategies to encourage students to ask for help from peers
  5. Structure classroom to value intrinsic motivation & rewards over extrinsic motivate & rewards
  6. Develop good caring relationships with all students
Elements of Effective Instruction in Question Generation:
  1. Provide procedural prompts specific to strategy being taught.
    • Examples: question stems, signal words.
  2. Provide models of appropriate responses.
    • Model how to use question stems and how to give appropriate responses to questions.
  3. Anticipate potential difficulties.
    • Use prior knowledge of students to predict potential pitfalls and constructive responses to these.
  4. Regulate difficulty of material.
    • Start formulating question from short passages and then lengthen passages and deepen their complexity over time.
  5. Provide a cue card.
    • Use cue cards or cue posters that relate to questioning framework in use – e.g. Bloom taxonomy.
  6. Guide student practice.
    • Practice in multiple modes: with teacher, reciprocal teaching, in small groups.
  7. Provide feedback and corrections.
    • Give opportunities for teacher and peer feedback structure by feedback protocols such as Critical Friends.
  8. Provide and teach a checklist.
    • Teacher age-appropriate checklist that describes good questions.
  9. Assess student mastery.
    • Set aside multiple practice opportunities described over time for students to develop the skill of formulating good questions.  Assess their ability to formulate good questions and provide more practice opportunities and feedback as needed.
 
Stages to Teach Students for Designing Questions:
  1. Planning phase – students experience things and ask questions
  2. Implementation phase – student pursue and refine questions
  3. Assessing phase – students assess effectiveness of questions
Student Question-Generation Formats
  1. Reciprocal Teaching
    • What – Students and teachers use dialogue to draw meaning from text
    • Why – Improve comprehension & metacognition
    • How – Teacher selects a text selection and assigns to students to read.  Student summarize what they have read and generate questions about the text.  Teacher assigns one student to role play as teacher and ask students questions about the text.  Teacher asks as a coach who helps students ask good questions.  Students not playing the teacher are encouraged to answer questions and ask clarifying questions.
  2. Pair Problem Solving
    • What – Students solve problems while interviewing each other in pairs
    • Why – Promote metacognition and analytical thinking
    • How – Students assigned problems and paired up.  One person in pair solves problem by thinking aloud.  Partner records approach, asks clarifying questions to learn specific of problem solving steps and does NOT intervene if he or she perceived errors in thinking.  Partners take turns being in the think aloud and listening roles.
  3. Metacognitive Anchoring
    • What – Students ask metacognitive questions of themselves while reading texts
    • Why –  Improve comprehension & metacognition
    • How – Student ask themselves questions while reading a text and write in their responses in margins or on sticky notes.  After reading and annotating the text, students can transfer their response to a metacognition chart which these columns:  Type of Questions I asked during Reading, Type of Thinking in Questions, Why I asked that Questions.  Questions include:
      • What does this remind me of?
      • Why dd this happen?
      • What evidence supports this?
      • Is this ethical?  How can I evaluate this?
      • Is write trying to persuade me? Do I believe this?
      • What point of view is guiding the reading?
  4. Role-play Questioning
    • What – Students ask questions about a problem while role playing as investigators of a problem.
    • Why – Promote engagement & higher-level thinking
    • How – Students are organized in teams with one recorder.  Teacher poses a potential problem.  Students posing as investigators of problem ask questions about the problem.  They may brainstorm some answers related to questions.  Then ask more questions related to this brainstorming.  After question sessions, teams meet to compare questions and decide which might be the most effective questions to investigate to solve the problem.
  5. Press Conference
    • What – Students ask questions of a visiting expert.
    • Why – Stimulate curiosity & practice active listening
    • How – Students work in pairs to brainstorm questions in advance.  Pairs compile a master class list.  Students prioritize and categorize questions.  Students select a reasonable number of related questions to ask visiting expert.
  6. Textbook Question Analysis
    • What – Students analyze textbook questions to determine their cognitive values and assign them values
    • Why – Promote analysis & review content
    • How – Teach students first about the different cognitive levels of questions and their purposes.  Students record textbook questions in a question form that has students determine the cognitive level of question, consequence of question (what would student learn), and assign value to the question
  7. Question Review
    • What – Students in peers provide feedback on research questions that can be used to refine them
    • Why – Promote critical thinking
    • How – Students individually brainstorm potential questions and approaches for investigating these questions.  Students pair.  Students take turns presenting questions and giving presenter warm and cool feedback about questions.  After review session, students summarize feedback and revise questions.
  8. Round-Robin Questioning
    • What – Students create questions and answers and take turns asking questions of other students and giving feedback.  Cooperative groups ponder questions with uncertain responses
    • Why – Review & promote key ideas
    • How – Teacher directs students to generate 7 questions – 6 they know the answer and 1 they are curious about but are uncertain of the answer.  Students take time to record questions and answers.  Teacher called on 1st student.  1st student calls on another student and asks one of her questions.  He responds while she cues and probes as needed.  Teacher only intervenes to clear up misconceptions and to coach questioners to give appropriate wait times and to ask probing questions.  Student who responded to the first question calls on the next student and asks a question.  This pattern continues until all students have taken a turn to ask a question or until activity time expires.  Then students are divided into cooperative teams.  They discuss their questions with uncertain responses and try to brainstorm responses.  They select their favorite question to share with the whole class.
  9. Twenty Questions
    • What – Students ask 20 yes/no questions in an attempt to guess a person, place or thing related to a given topic
    • Why – Practice reasoning & problem solving & how to ask relevant questions
    • How – Divide students into play groups (whole class or down to groups of 5).  Announce a topic. One person thinks of a person, place, or thing related to the topic.  The rest of the students take turns asking yes/no questions in an attempt to funnel down to the correct person, place, or thing.  Students can take a guess (in place of a question) if they think they know the answers.  Teams can take up to 3 guesses to get the right answer.
  10. Actor, Actor
    • What – Students practice responding to questions from the perspective of a key person
    • Why – Promote retention & engagement
    • How – Divide students into teams of 4.  Select a topic.  Students select an important person related to the topic.  One person in the topic role plays as the chosen person.  The remaining team mates ask that person questions that the chosen person could answer in a distinctive way.
  11. Question / Question
    • What – Students interact using only questions
    • Why – practice active listening & thinking
    • How –  Group students in pairs.  Announce a topic.  Students discuss the topic for as long as they can using only questions.
  12. Answer/ Question
    • What –  Students develop questions that go with given stimuli (like Jeopardy)
    • Why – promote retention & higher level thinking
    • How – Select stimuli (text excerpts, diagrams, charts, etc.).  Challenge students to come up with as many questions as possible that could go with the stimuli.
  13. Talk Show
    • What – Students practice conversing about a topic using the roles of actor and interviewer
    • Why – apply knowledge, stimulate higher level thinking
    • How – Divide students into pairs.  Assign students roles – one role is a key character or person related to a current topic in class and one role is a news reporter.  The students role-play the interview while acting in character.

 

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Students who ask questions are more likely to be plugged into the learning that is occurring in class.  Teaching them how to ask questions helps them approach learning more actively and more critically.  Using varied protocols to encourage student questioning can give students multiple opportunities to formulate, analyze and use their questions.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Develop criteria for good questions and for types of questions.  Example – question stems based on Bloom’s taxonomy
  • Teach students how to use criteria to generate good questions
  • Analyze standards and products in upcoming products.
  • Brainstorm which types of interactions with question will help enhance students’ learning of specific standards and development of specific products.
  • Select activities (see above and also here) that provide ALL students with opportunities to create, use, and respond to questions.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Practice using one of the alternate question response (or formulating) activities with students.
  • Have students reflect on what they learned as a result of the activity.
  • Use feedback from students to fine tune activities.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Give students feedback on the quality of their questions.  Give students opportunities to use that feedback to improve their questions.
  • Ask students for feedback on questioning activities.  Use their feedback to improve activities and to decide which activities to incorporate into class routines.

 

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123: Alternate Question Response Formats

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  1. Choral Responses
    • What – Class answers at once in unison
    • Why – Check for understanding, review, reinforce knowledge, drill & practice
    • How – Develop routine cue to signal time of response
  2. Signaled Answers
    • What – All students answer with a hand signal
    • Why – Check for understanding, review, reinforce knowledge, drill & practice
    • How – Develop routine for types of signaled answers (ex: thumbs up, thumbs down)
  3. Numbered Heads Together
    • What  – Students in numbered teams think together and provide response when number is called
    • Why – Peer teaching, Holding students accountable to cooperative learning styles (ex: jigsaw), review concepts prior to learning new ones, activate prior knowledge
    • How – Form heterogenous teams where each member has a different number (1, 2, 3 or 4).  Pose question.  Give teams time to compose responses.  Call out a number and all students with that number raise their hands.  Call on a couple students with their hands raised.
  4. Think-Pair-Share
    • What – Students process responses individually, in pairs, and with the whole group.
    • Why – Review, activate prior knowledge, give students processing time prior to discussions
    • How – Pose question.  Give students time to compose responses quietly and individually.  Give students time to share responses with a partner.  Then pairs share responses with whole group.
  5. Peoplegraph
    • What – Students stand on a continuum line to express their opinion
    • Why – engage students in active thinking prior to a discussion or written assignment, give students time to consider core concepts
    • How – Setup way to communicate meaning of high and low values on the continuum, pose question, ask students to stand on the line according to their opinion, provide time for students in close and far proximity to share why they chose their position on the line
  6. Data on Display
    • What – Creating collective visual displays of students’ opinions
    • Why – Examine assumptions.  Practice hypothesizing, making predictions and analyzing data.
    • How – Students given a set of questions on a workshops; each response is a percentage from 0 to 100%.  Poster bar charts for each question are set up around classroom – horizontal axis is divided into 10% bins.  Students use post-its to place their responses on the poster charts.  Once all votes are posted, students examine each poster, notice and discuss trends.
  7. Synectics
    • What – Students use metaphors to make connections to ideas and solutions
    • Why – Develop deeper insights into topics by viewing them from different perspectives.  Promote divergent thinking and diverse points of view.
    • How:
      • Simple – Pick 2 opposite objectives (ex: ice cream or spaghetti)  Ask students to think individually whether they think a topic is more like 1 metaphor or the other.  Then group students and have them discuss their associations and come to a group response.  Then each group shares responses.
      • 4 corner – Pick 4 metaphors and label 4 corner of room (ex: football, tennis, basketball, golf).  Place a poster post-it at each corner.  Present a topic.  Students decide which metaphor goes best with the topic.  They work in teams with students who share their opinion to list the reasons why the topic goes with the selected metaphor (5 minutes).  All 4 groups share their lists with the whole group.  Then students continue discussing topics or do a related writing assignment.
  8. Interview Design
    • What – Students collect answers to interview questions in round robin style.
    • Why – Encourage students to respect and become aware of different points of view.  Promote active listening and note taking.  Provide structure for every student to answer every question.  Practice in summarizing.
    • How – Divide class into 1 of 2 concentric circles.  Each student gets one sheet with copy of a single interview question.  Students sit in concentric circles.  Time is allotted for inside person to ask outside circle person their interview question and listen and take notes (1 min).  Then time is allotted for the outside person to interview the inside circle person and take notes (1 min).  Then the outside person rotates 1 spot in the clockwise direction.   Time is allotted for each pair of interviews.  Then the outer circle rotates again until all students have had the opportunity to answer all interview questions.  Then groups are assembled of students who had the same interview question.  Each group looks for major themes in the responses (5-6 min) and then each group reports these to the class
  9. Fishbowl Discussion
    • What – Students discuss topics while other students take notes and analyze them for major themes
    • Why – Practice note taking and active listening.  Practice discussion skills and receive feedback in a safe environment.
    • How – Arrange students in 2 concentric circles.  Seat enough students in the inner circle to leave 1-2 seats empty.  Go over discussion norms: examples: invite all people to speak. use appropriate wait time. Pose a question.  Students in the inside circle discuss question while outside circle students take notes.  After discussion facilitate a debrief discussion in which outer circle students share major themes and to what extend the discussion was effective
  10. Say-It-In-A-Word
    • What – Students respond to a question with a single word
    • Why – Practice decision making and active listening.  Level playing field by insure that every student has same opportunity for initial response.
    • How – Class sits in a circle.  Teacher poses a questions.  Gives students processing time.  Students take turns responding to question with one word.  Teacher asks following up choices that ask students to explain their word choices.

 

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Knowing alternate response formats can help teachers facilitate classroom conversations that are more varied and that require and value participation from all students.  Varying the format can keep conversations fresh and high energy.  For best effect, it helps to select a response format that matches an instructional goal.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards and develop aligned learning targets.
  • Use characteristics of quality questions to brainstorm variety of questions that relate to learning target.
  • Decide which response formats go best with key questions.
  • Develop resources that go with selected response formats
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use selected response formats to encourage active participation of all students.
  • Have students reflect on how response formats are affecting their participation and attitude toward classroom conversations.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Poll students to find out which response formats they prefer for specific instructional formats.  Use their preferences to identify response formats that can be built into classroom routines.

 

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122: Characteristics of Quality Questions

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  1. Quality questions promote 1 or more carefully defined instructional purposes
    • When teachers are very deliberate and clear about the purposes of their questions, they can better assess student performance.
    • When students are aware of the purposes of questions, they can better monitor and modify their responses.
    • Two types of question styles
      1. Recitation:
        • teacher involved in each exchange
        • students tend to answer in short factual answers
        • usually low-level questions involving recall
        • Purposes:
          • review for test
          • check for completion of assignments
          • assess what students know about topics
          • cue students to important content
          • drill and practice
          • get students to talk
          • model good questioning
      2. Discussion:
        • typically more rare
        • teacher acts as facilitator who ensures full participation for all
        • students don’t wait for teacher’s permission to speak
        • students engage in dialogue with one another
        • students make own evaluations
        • teacher poses 1-2 provocative, open questions that start a discussion
        • Purposes:
          • student practice thinking aloud
          • encourage listening and sharing different perspectives
          • improve listening skills
          • students work out own understanding of a topic
  2. Quality questions focus on important content
    • Frameworks can help prioritize content:
      • Wiggins & Tighe Schema:
        • divide up content into 3 areas:
          • primary – big ideas, enduring understandings
          • secondary – important skills to know and do
          • tertiary – worth being familiar with
        • Good questions:
          • relate to a big idea worthy of discussion
          • aligned to standards
          • tie to needs and interests of students
      • Christenbury & Kelly Framework:
        • Model is a Venn diagram of 3 knowledge domains:
          • content knowledge
          • student prior knowledge
          • outside knowledge
        • Use questions that form a variety of 3 types:
          • Single domain questions deal with one domain
          • Overlap questions deal with 2 domains
          • Dense questions deal with 3 domains
  3. Quality questions facilitate thinking at a stipulated cognitive level
    • questions are tools for information seeking AND information processing
    • when formulating questions, need to communicate to students the types of thinking needed to generate appropriate responses
    • Bloom’s Taxonomy:
      • New 2-D Schema:
        • Cognitive Process Dimension
          • Remember
            • recognize, identify, recall
            • lower level, but essential – students need to be able to retrieve info from memory before they can use it
          •  Understand
            • interpret, exemplify, classify, summarize, infer, compare, explain
            • connect new knowledge to prior knowledge
            • beyond remembering – must involve information not included in initial instruction of content
          •  Apply
            • execute – apply procedure to familiar task
            • implement – apply procedure to unfamiliar task
          •  Analyze
            • differentiate, analyze, attribute
            • examples:
              • separate fact from fiction
              • back conclusions with evidence
              • separate relevant and extraneous info
              • identify unstated assumptions
              • identify primary and secondary themes
          •  Evaluate
            • check – looking for internal consistency
            • critique – comparing things to external criteria
          •  Create
            • generate, plan, produce
            • draw upon many elements and integrate them into a novel structure relative to one’s prior knowledg
        • Question Planning Tool related to 6 Cognitive Level – Q-Card
        • Knowledge Dimension
          • Factual knowledge – knowledge of discrete packets of info
          • Conceptual knowledge – knowledge of more complex bodies of info
          • Procedural knowledge – knowledge of skills
          • Metacognitive knowledge – knowledge of one’s own cognition and about cognition in general
      • Marzano’s Taxonomy
        • Recitation questions
          • retrieve previously learned info
        • Construction questions
          • construct new knowledge not previously learned
      • Gallagher & Aschner’s Taxonomy
        • Recall
          • Remember level in Bloom’s
        • Convergent
          • lead to one correct response
        • Divergent
          • allow for several correct responses
      • Reading Teacher’s Taxonomy
        • Reading the lines
          • answer is right there in the text
        • Reading in between the lines
          • think about what text is saying
        • Reading beyond the lines
          • bring own perspectives to the text
      • Walsh & Satte’s Taxonomy
        • Recall
          • Remember level of Bloom’s
          • recall what was learned
        • Use
          • Understand, Apply, Analyze levels of Bloom’s
          • use what was learned
        • Create
          • Create and Evaluate levels of Bloom’s
          • use imagination to go beyond what was learned
    • Choosing a taxonomy
      • select one that is age appropriate, aligns to content, etc
      • recommend school wide use of the same framework
    • Caveats
      • Actual cognitive level of response is dependent on context and student’s prior knowledge
      • On average – 50% of student responses do not match the cognitive level of question
        • teach students the cognitive levels to help them perform at the right level
        • follow-up incorrect responses with probing questions
      • Most textbook questions are at lowest level because textbook organizes info in such a way (compared to primary sources) that answers to questions can be found in book (recall)
      • False assumption = lower level students can’t answer high cognitive level questions
        • all levels of students can answer high cognitive level questions with the right scaffolding
  4. Good questions communicate clearly what is being asked. 
    • Be clear and concise
    • Use student friendly language
    • Sound right when spoken aloud
  5. Good questions are seldom asked by chance
    • Crafting good questions can be time consuming
    • It only takes a handful of good  pivotal questions to drive a lesson

 

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Knowing the characteristics and frameworks that support quality question design can help teachers plan and implement questions that create an engaging culture of inquiry that supports students actively processing new and old knowledge at deeper levels.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Create a laminated quality question framework map.  Example: could be a matrix with
    • columns being Bloom’s Cognitive levels and
    • rows could be Bloom’s Knowledge dimensions or rows for 3 standards
    • grids squares are large enough to hole small post-its and contain notes and examples
  • Analyze standards in upcoming project and determine
    • enduring understandings, skils, good-to-knows
    • academic and character (long term & supporting) learning targets
  • On placement – circle the most useful types of questions
  • Use post-its to brainstorm high quality questions that fit with circled questions
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use completed quality question map to ask students questions that get them to actively process key information.
  • Use methods for calling on students that provide opportunities for ALL students to participate
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Teach students the types of thinking in your questioning framework – teach them the question types and responses that go with each type of thinking
  • Model for students how to classify the question type and model how to think aloud in the correct cognitive level. Then give them time to process the question with that lens of thinking before calling on them
  • Continue modeling question classifying and processing (using think aloud) until students are able to this independently

 

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121: Questioning Strategies Research

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Researching Findings & Implications
  1. Teachers ask many questions.
    • Research studies shows results between 1-4 questions per minute
    • No studies linking number of questions to student learning
    • Research shows that no questioning is worse than having questioning (even if it’s low level)
    • Implications:
      • Questions promote student learning
      • Teachers should plan questions to ensure alignment to objectives and to stimulate student thinking
      • A few carefully prepared questions are preferable to large numbers of questions.
  2. Most teacher questions are at the lowest cognitive level (fact, recall, knowledge)
    • Only 20% require thinking at high levels
    • Mixed results on tie between cognitive levels of questions and student achievement
    • Higher-level questions promote development of thinking skils
    • Implications:
      • Teachers should plan questions that get students to engage in higher level thinking.
      • Teachers should prepare questions at varied levels of thinking.
      • Teachers should help students become aware of varied levels of thinking.
  3. Not all students are accountable to respond to questions.  Teachers frequently call on volunteers and these constitute a select group of students.
    • Target students (Frequent volunteers) talk more than 3x more than their classmates
    • 25% of students don’t participate at all
    • Students who regularly answer questions in discussion do better on standardized tests
    • Implications:
      • Teachers, not students, should decide who answers questions.
      • Teachers should use strategies that give ALL students opportunities to participate.
      • Teachers should promote classroom norms that value all student responses and questions.
  4. Teachers typically wait less than one second after asking a question before calling on a student (Wait Time 1).  They wait even less time before speaking after students has answered (Wait Time 2)
    • Longer wait times (1 and 2) have been shown to increase quality of student participation.
    • Implications:
      • Wait times 1 and 2 give students time for students to process and give better quality responses.
      • Silence is golden.
  5. Teachers often accept incorrect answers without probing; they frequently answer their own questions.
    • Many teachers are reluctant to provide feedback to students who provide incorrect answers.
    • Nearly half of student responses are at a different cognitive level than teacher questions, yet teachers generally accept their answers as sufficient without probing for correct responses.
    • Probing is positively correlated with student achievement.
    • Implications:
      • When the norms is that all students can give correct responses, teachers give prompts (when necessary) that guide students to correct responses.
      • When students give incomplete or incorrect responses, teachers should seek to understand those answering using probing questions.
  6. Students ask very few content related questions
    • Asking questions stimulates understanding and engagement
    • Implications:
      • Student questions are essential to deep engagement with and learning of content.
      • Teachers should help students formulate good questions and make time for student questions.
Challenges to Following Through on Good Questioning Strategies:
  • Pressure to cover too much material
  • Fear of embarrassing a student
  • Silence during wait time is uncomfortable
  • Need to keep things moving
  • Get caught up in excitement of the lesson
  • Lack of patience
  • Lack of awareness of wait time lapses
  • Need to keep students active and engaged
  • Lack of ability to develop good higher order questions and good probing questions
  • Teacher driven vs. student driven classrooms
Reflection Questions:
  • Classroom Norms:
    • Does my classroom have and support norms that value inquiry and thoughtful dialogue?
    • Have I communicated these norms to my students and have them think about their impact on their learning?
  • Scaffolding Behaviors:
    • Do I use a variety of formats to engage students in answering questions?
    • Have students learned rules that go with different formats?
  • Student-Centered:
    • Do I see myself as a facilitator of student learnings as opposed to a singular content expert?
    • Are students responsible for constructing their own answers to questions and their own meanings to those questions and answers?
    • Do students approach learning as a collaborative endeavor involving themselves, their peers and the teacher?
  • Awareness of Best Practices:
    • Have you talked with students about the value of quality questioning on their learning experiences?
    • How you taught your students how to formulate good questions?

 

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Questioning best practices have been shown to increase student engagement and student learning.  Knowing about the well-meaning common pitfalls of questioning practices can make one aware of what questioning strategies are missing or need improvements in one’s classroom routines.  Understanding the implications of research related to questioning strategies can help one set better norms and use better practices to promote quality questioning and responding.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Videotape a lesson.
  • Analyze video to see how questioning strategies compare to research findings and implications above.
  • Reflect on reflection questions.  See above.
  • Research and brainstorm strategies to improve questioning strategies.  See Questioning Strategies articles.
  • Set up and promote classroom norms that promote inquiry and thoughtful dialogues.
  • Research various strategies for calling on ALL students during discussions.
  • Prepare questions that cover varied thinking levels for upcoming lessons
Early Implementation Steps
  • Ask students questions that cover varied thinking levels.
  • Allow students enough process time to give high quality responses.
  • Ask probing questions to learn more about incomplete or incorrect responses.
  • Use variety of strategies to give responding opportunities to ALL students.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Deliberated design questions that cover 6 facets of understanding and all Bloom’s levels.
  • Teach students cognitive models and how to formulate questions at all levels of various cognitive models – 6 facets of understanding, Bloom’s taxonomy.
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120: Design Rationale Products

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Screen Shot 2016-05-09 at 12.56.11 PM

 

  1. Concept Poster
    • Post illustrating main points of a new ideas
    • Purposes:
      • Communicated future vision
      • Build a business case
      • Gain support from stakeholders
      • Provide road map for moving forward
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify new idea to introduce
      • Assemble a team and drawing materials
    • Implementation steps:
      • Develop name and tag line for concept
      • Write short summary of idea
      • Include descriptions of key stakeholders
      • List few features and benefits
      • Illustrate concept with big picture or diagram
      • Add timeline for developing solution
      • Draft layout and final poster
    • Helpful hints:
      • Make first draft quickly – don’t over think
      • Display posters to rally enthusiasm
    • Sample process:
      • Purpose: Coming up with clear solutions, summarizing main points and polling opinions of others
      • Steps:
        • Round Robin (Making)
        • Concept Poster (Making)
        • Visualize the Vote (Understanding)
    • School applications:
      • Students can create these early in a poster while launch enthusiasm is still high and ideas abound.  They can post these up in a gallery walk for early feedback on their proposed products and solutions.  These can remain on the wall throughout the project.
      • Teachers can create concept posters as entry docs for projects and post on walls of classroom throughout project.
  2. Video Scenario
    • Short movie showing new concept in use
    • Purposes:
      • Communicate future possibilities
      • Communicate what concept in action looks like
      • Gain support from stakeholders
      • Inspire team
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify new concept to represent
      • Assemble small team
      • Create storyboard of future scenario
      • Write detailed script
      • Collect prototypes, people, props, etc
    • Implementation steps:
      • Record video or take still shots of each scene
      • Edit footage 2-5 min
      • Record and overlap narration
      • Post final movie online for convenient viewing
    • Sample process:
    • School applications:
      • Teachers can use this process to create entry videos for projects
      • Students can use this process to create product videos that illustrate key processes in content they are studying
  3. Cover Story Mock-Up
    • mock news article describe successful future of a new idea
    • Purpose:
      • Show successful future state
      • Promote shared vision
      • Gain support from decision makers
      • Inspire your team
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify concept to promote
      • Assemble team and drawing materials
    • Implementation steps:
      • Select relevant magazine and draw masthead
      • Write a newsworthy heading and subheading
      • Draw an illustration of new concept
      • Write first paragraph of story
      • Draw supporting illustrations inside the spread
      • Include callouts, quotes, and sidebar stories
    • Helpful hints:
      • Make it realistic
      • Circulate magazine to rally enthusiasm
    • Sample process:
      • Purpose: Think of a lot of ideas, narrow down options, tell others concept, invite feedback
      • Steps:
        • Creative Matrix (Making)
        • Importance / Difficulty Matrix (Understanding)
        • Cover Story Mock-up (Making)
        • Visualize the Vote (Understanding)
    • School applications:
      • Teachers can use this process to create engaging entry docs for projects
      • Admin can use this process to communicate vision for the school year to teachers
      • Students an use this process to communicate a hopeful vision for their upcoming school year
  4. Quick Reference Guide
    • Short document summarizing the key principles and elements of a proposed solution
    • Purposes:
      • Summarize rationale for design
      • Promote key principles
      • Provide specs
      • Support proper implementation
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify design in need of documentation
      • Assemble team that created design
    • Implementation steps:
      • Ask them to communicate the design intent
      • Summarize guiding principles of design
      • Indicate standards for color, format, font, etc
      • Provide library of design templates and patterns
      • Package the specs in a concise manner
      • Prepare a small booklet and/or online reference
    • Helpful hints:
      • Keep it short – 10-12 pages
      • Make guide clear enough for implementation
    • Sample Process:
    • School applications:
      • Students can create this as a product for projects that have them research, develop, test, and refine processes
      • Teachers can create this product to provide students with guides for key academic skills such as – how to take notes, lab report writing process, how to set/track/refine goals, etc.
3-sowhat
The design rationale strategies help designers convey enough about the features and rationale for products to draw in stakeholders and to guide future design steps.  Teachers can use these strategies to generate enthusiasm for projects and to communicate useful classroom skills and routines.  Teachers can design products that have use some of the design rationale products as preliminary and/or final products.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • For teacher use:
    • Decide tasks / problems that could benefit from design rationale strategies (examples: create entry docs, creating writing process guides, etc)
    • Select design rationale method(s) that will can help generate the most useful product
    • Design scaffolding that helps students discuss and make use of design rational product
  • For student use:
    • Identify points in projects where developing a design rationale product will be a useful activity
    • Design resources to help guide students through developing design rationale products.  See above.
Early Implementation Steps
  • For teacher use:
    • Use design rationale products to communicate & generate enthusiasm for strategies, visions for upcoming projects, etc
  • For student use:
    • Scaffold activities aimed at creating and gathering feedback on design rationale products
    • Follow-up with more design activities.  See hyperlinks above for ideas.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • For teacher use (understanding students):
    • Observe how students use design rationale products to learn how to develop better designs for similar future products
  • For student use (understanding stakeholders for project):
    • Have students reflect on design rationale products – how did it work?  what assumptions were challenged? what new things were learned? what new ideas were inspired? how can this approach be used in other settings?
5-relatedstuff

119: Modeling & prototyping

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2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-09 at 1.01.14 PM

 

  1. Storyboarding
    • Series of images showing key elements and interactions of a new scenario
    • Purpose:
      • Shows concept in action
      • Visualize the future
      • Gain support from decision makers
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify idea to develop
      • Create poster with 10-12 empty panes
      • Assemble diverse team
      • Provide drawing materials
    • Implementation steps:
      • Draft storyline
      • Determine setting and main characters
      • Draw key frames for future scenario
      • Add descriptive captions to each drawing
    • Helpful hints:
      • Explain ideas to others
      • Get inspiration from comic books
      • Use variety of angles (panoramic, close up)
    • Sample process:
    • School applications:
      • Teacher can use this technique to storyboard upcoming projects and upcoming activities with tricky logistics
      • Students can use this technique to brainstorm experiments, essays, reports, videos, etc
  2. Schematic diagramming
    • Outline of structure & essential components of a system
    • Purposes:
      • Shows structure of proposed solution
      • Work out functional details
      • Build shared understanding
      • Inform future design activities
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify an idea or concept to develop
      • Assemble a diverse team
      • Gather drawing materials
    • Implementation steps:
      • Determine basic elements to include
      • Render each element SIMPLY
      • Compose elements in clear way
      • Adjust size and weight of things for emphasis
      • Arrange overall diagram in an orderly manner
    • Helpful tips:
      • Avoid realistic pictures
      • Keep it skeletal
      • Use grid structure to line things up
      • Use color sparingly
    • Sample process:
    • School applications:
      • Can use this to redesign complicated school systems such – professional development systems, systems that promote school culture
      • Can use this to design system of activities that scaffold skills over the long term such as scaffolding agency and collaboration
      • Students can use this to create a visual for a complicated system of arguments in a large research paper
  3. Rough & ready prototyping
    • rapid model of concept that mimics its appearance and function
    • Purposes:
      • Communicates shared vision of future product
      • Test ideas quickly
      • Iterative improvements
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify concept to develop
      • Assemble small design team
      • Gather basic materials
      • Consider what to learn from prototype
    • Implementation steps:
      • Build rough model of concept
      • Simulate as much functionality as possible
      • Create readable and realistic content
      • Label incomplete areas
    • Helpful hints:
      • Apply good craftsmanship but don’t aim for perfection
      • Be resource – incorporate found objects
      • Use role to simulate interactions
    • Sample process:
      • Purpose: Envision new solution, test it early
      • Steps:
    • School applications;
      • Students can build rough & ready prototypes in the context of design projects to test their ideas before committing to a more developed product (or they can end the project at the prototype phase and test it and reflect on what they learned)
      • Teachers can use this process to develop model products for projects
  4. Appearance modeling
    • Refined model of ideas that emphasizes visual styling (not function)
    • Purposes:
      • Consider aesthetics
      • Reveal emotional qualities
      • Provide vision for future
      • Gain support from stakeholders
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify concept to develop
      • Assemble small design team
      • Decide what to learn from model
      • Consider range of visual and emotional qualities
      • Assemble palette of colors and sample materials
    • Implementation steps:
      • Develop sketches to show possibilities
      • Hone in on a few treatments to refine detail
      • Draw realistic renderings of concepts
      • Produce models showing finished effects
    • Helpful hints:
      • Consider using 3-D printing
      • Use scaled-down model to show environment
      • It it’s a digital interface, place it on an actual device
    • Sample process:
      • Purpose: explore emotional and visual attributes of a concept
      • Steps:
    • School applications:
      • Students can go through the steps above to create appearance models for project products and can test these to learn about their emotional and visual impact
      • Teachers can use this process to develop model products for projects

 

3-sowhat
Quick prototyping and testing can teach teachers and students how to bring ideas to life and how to use data to refine them.  It can use fast iteration to show people how to take and leverage controlled risks.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • For teacher use:
    • Decide tasks / problems that could benefit from fast prototyping (examples: create model products to illustrate expectations, etc)
    • Select modeling method(s) that will can help generate the most useful prototypes
    • Design scaffolding that incorporates models to communicate and discuss expectations
  • For student use:
    • Identify points in projects where prototyping will be a useful activity
    • Design resources to help guide students through selected prototyping activities.  See above.
Early Implementation Steps
  • For teacher use:
    • Use models to communicate and discuss project expectations and to help illustrate project rubrics
  • For student use:
    • Scaffold activities aimed at creating and test prototypes
    • Follow-up with more design activities.  See hyperlinks above for ideas.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • For teacher use (understanding students):
    • Compare / constrast student work with teacher-generated prototypes in order to identify teacher and student strengths and areas of improvement.
    • Used what was learned from comparing teacher and student models to design scaffolding activities that help students become more efficient at skills that are gaps
  • For student use (understanding stakeholders for project):
    • Have students reflect on prototyping strategies – how did it work?  what assumptions were challenged? what new things were learned? what new ideas were inspired? how can this approach be used in other settings?
5-relatedstuff

118: Concept Ideation

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2-what

 

Screen Shot 2016-05-09 at 1.10.09 PM

  1. Thumbnail Sketching
    • Series of small drawings that explore new ideas
    • Purposes:
      • Generate quick ideas
      • Promote divergent thinking
      • Encourage sharing of ideas
      • Make iterative improvements
    • Preparation Steps:
      • Identify exploration topic.
      • Assemble team and drawing materials.
    • Implementation Steps:
      • Ask each team member to work independently
      • Each person focuses on one aspect of the topic and draws pictures of possibilities.
      • Then each person focuses on another aspect and draws more possibilities.
      • Group discusses sketches
      • Pick a subset to refine with additional sketching
    • Helpful Tips:
      • Encourage visual thinking
      • Not perfect drawings
      • Limit sketching round times
      • Refrain from editing early
    • Sample Process
      • Purpose: Explore large number of ideas and develop options to get quick feedback
      • Steps:
        • Thumbnail Sketching (Making)
        • Rough & Ready Prototyping (Making)
        • Critique (Looking)
    • School Applications
      • Teachers can use this technique to brainstorm project ideas and scaffolding ideas
      • Students can use this technique to brainstorm product ideas
  2. Creative Matrix
    • Brainstorm new ideas at intersection of distinct categories
    • Format:
      • Use columns for categories related to people (personas, market segments, problem statements)
      • Use rows as categories for enabling solutions (technologies, environments, policies, etc)
    • Purposes:
      • Generate large number of ideas
      • Promote divergent thinking
      • Develop new and usual ideas
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify design challenge in need of new ideas
      • Set up grid poster (max 5×5)
        • Label columns – related to people
        • Label rows – related to solutions
      • Form teams
    • Implementation steps:
      • Instruct teams to ideate on the grid
      • One idea per sticky note
      • Limit time – 15-20 minutes
    • Helpful hints:
      • Draw pictures of ideas
      • Fill every cell of grid
      • Reward quantity
    • Sample process:
      • Purpose: Define a challenge and develop many quick ideas
      • Steps:
        • Statement starters (Understanding)
        • Creative Matrix (Making)
        • Visualize the Vote (Understanding)
        • Cover Story Mock-Up (Making)
    • School Applications:
      • Teachers can use this technique to facilitate an activity that has students brainstorm many strategies for building positive classroom environments
      • Teachers can use this technique to develop many project ideas that go with different course topics
      • Students can use this technique to develop many product ideas that go with a problem statement
  1. Round Robin 
    • Ideas evolve as they are passed from person to person
    • Purposes:
      • Get input from all team members
      • Diminish overbearing opinions
      • Generate new and unusual idea
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify design challenge in need of new ideas
      • Created workshops (1 per person) folded into 4 parts
    • Implementation steps:
      • Instruct each person to write down challenge
      • Each person draws an unconventional solution
      • Then pass paper to the left
      • Write one reason why idea will fail
      • Pass paper to the left
      • Draft resolution to the critique
    • Helpful tips:
      • Limit time – 2-3 minute rounds
      • Encourage wild ideas
      • Invite discussion of new ideas
    • Sample process:
      • Purpose: refocus problem, develop fresh ideas and decide which ideas to develop
      • Steps:
        • Problem Tree Analysis (Understanding)
        • Round Robin (Making)
        • Visualize the Voce (Understanding)
        • Concept Poster (Making)
    • School applications:
      • Students can use this technique to generate product ideas to a design challenge
      • Grade level teachers can use this technique to develop grade level policies that support students
  2. Alternative Worlds
    • Using perspectives to help generate fresh ideas
    • Purposes:
      • See things from a fresh perspective
      • Leverage success from other domains
      • Generate new ideas
    • Preparation steps:
      • Identify topic
      • Recruit diverse team
      • Create list of analogous topics
      • Think about representative organizations
      • Select few alternative worlds to explore
    • Implementation steps:
      • Orient team to key characteristics of each world
      • Ask, how would _______ solve this problem?
      • Seek various ideas inspired by each world
    • Helpful tips:
      • Choose a world different from yours
      • Try to interview someone from alternative world
    • Sample process:
      • Purpose: Generating new ideas from alternative perspectives and visually conveying new concepts
      • Steps:
        • Alternative Worlds (Making)
        • Thumbnail Sketching (Making)
        • Concept Poster (Making)
    • School applications:
      • Students can use this technique to brainstorm products from the perspectives of real companies
      • Teachers can use this technique to design management strategies from the perspectives of real companies known for supporting innovation in their employees

 

3-sowhat
Brainstorming occurs in a lot of PBL projects.  Knowing several brainstorming techniques will allow PBL teachers to facilitate brainstorming in ways that feel fresh and that hopefully help students generate a lot of creative ideas.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • For teacher use:
    • Decide problems that need new solutions (examples: project problem statements, grading policies, management policies, etc)
    • Select brainstorming method(s) that will can help generate the most useful solutions
  • For student use:
    • Identify points in projects where brainstorming will be a useful activity
    • Design resources to help guide students through selected brainstorming activities.  See above.
Early Implementation Steps
  • For teacher use:
    • Implement selected strategies for brainstorming.
    • Follow up with more design steps.  See above for ideas.
  • For student use:
    • Scaffold activities aimed at brainstorming new ideas.
    • Follow-up with more design activities.  See hyperlinks above for ideas.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • For teacher use (understanding students):
    • Share new brainstormed ideas with students and check to see if they if any of the ideas appear useful and feasible to them.
    • Used brainstormed solutions to develop better projects, strategies, policies, etc.
  • For student use (understanding stakeholders for project):
    • Have students reflect on brainstorming strategies – how did it work?  what assumptions were challenged? what new things were learned? what new ideas were inspired? how can this approach be used in other settings?

 

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