Getting Students to Ask the Questions

In order for students to demonstrate deep understanding of something, the right questions have to be asked. Questioning should not be something we devote a week to, but instead something that we do and ask our students to do everyday. Here are some strategies to get students asking questions:

Question Formulation Technique - a simple, structured protocol for getting students to ask questions.

10 Questions in 10 minutes - Students have 10 minutes to create 10 questions about a topic. Then they have to decide which of those questions are the best ones to research in order to complete a project.

Why/What if/How - come up with a problem for kids to tackle (e.g., “Students aren’t coming to school on time”) and challenge the students to start using Why questions to explore reasons behind the problem; then use What If questions to try to come up with imaginative ideas for solutions; then use practical How questions to try to make those “What If” ideas more realistic and actionable.

How Might We…? - Ask students to think about some of the issues or challenges they’re most interested in. Together, try to come up with 5 to 10 big “How Might We” questions to address some of those challenges (e.g., “How might we help kids in our community who are hungry?”). Once you have a list, see if the group can agree on one “How Might We” question to adopt and work on together in days ahead—that can become the group’s “mission question.”

The 5 Whys - put some problems in front of the group, and together, try subjecting them to the 5 Whys, to see where it leads. You can also pair off students and have them try the 5 Whys on each other. It’s fun and interesting (sometimes it leads to new insights, other times to dead ends!). But it also provides a great lesson on the value of using follow-up questions to dig deeper into a challenge.




Wonder Walls - During a lesson if a student asks a question that can’t be answered they write it on a sticky note and put it on the wall. At the end of the day, students can copy the questions and research them at home or during free time. The next days, students present their findings.”

Taken from http://questionweek.com/exercises-to-build-your-questioning-muscles/

20 Time Project

                               Giving Kids Space to Explore Their Interests

Source

You might have heard of: Passion Project, 20% Project, Genius Hour, Tutoria, and/or Twenty Time projects. Google is credited for making the 20% Project what it is today.  Google asks its employees to spend 20% of their time at Google to work on a pet project...a project that their job description doesn't cover. As a result of the 20% Project at Google, they now have Gmail, AdSense, Google News, and the Google Teacher Academy!

Many classrooms across the country (and globally) are embracing the idea of allowing students time within the school day to explore an interest in a project or idea and later present to a wider audience.

As our instructional focus calls for students to demonstrate a deeper understanding many teachers are looking for engaging activities that are relevant to student's lives and allow them to pursue research for a cause or content they find interesting.

The goal is to allow students to pick their own project and learning outcomes, while still hitting grade level standards and skills.

Check out this post for 20% implementation guidance.

Here’s a great article from Edutopia that defends “Why 20% is good for Schools”.

And check out these student TedX Talks about Student Passion!! Here is the how the teacher organized and implemented the student TedX talks.

Here are some possible ideas to help brainstorm with students for 20% projects:

• Write a novel, children's book, book of original poems
• Keep an blog about a current event
• Create a how-to video about soccer, fixing Xbox controllers, fitness
• Paint a mural
• Build a RC race car
• Go vegetarian or vegan
• Bake something new every week
• Learn how to cook meals
• Create a curriculum for a church group
• Learn how to crochet
• Learn how to play the bass, piano, ukelele
• Film a BMX video, Warren Miller-style snowboarding video with the student as the star
• Learn my family's recipes and cook with my grandmother, aunt, mother
• Learn how to longboard
• Create a movie by writing a script, filming, and editing
• Study and learn depression, high school anxiety problems
• Learn yoga
• Create a music album of original tracks
• Create, market, and sell protein drinks
• Plan and carry out a beach clean-up day
• Learn how to do crafty things with Pinterest
• Raise money for Afghan schools
• Create, market, and sell candles (jewelry or anything else)
• Create a short claymation movie
• Create an online newspaper
• Create a movie about free things to do in the area to post to YouTube 
• Develop and fine tune photography skills
• Learn how to fix my car: oil, tires, filters, etc
• Research behind-the-scenes of movies jobs
• Quit eating fast food and document progress
• Make and donate cookies and baskets for the Children's Hospital
• Invent an iphone charger that works with kinetic energy
• Build a timing booth for the school's track team
• Create a form to help future students get into colleges
• Make and send care packages to the troops overseas
• Making and selling hair bows to donate money to charity 
• Learn improv (Check in with Ray Mallard!)
• Learn how to swim, dive, scuba dive, run
• Improve my time on the mile
• Run a marathon
• Pay it Forward
• Constructing a computer
• Scrapbooking

This is not an exhaustive list...but could be used as a tool to push kids into their own creativity around ideas, causes/solutions, and activities that they are interested in pursuing more deeply.

Genius Hour: For those not ready for a commitment (teachers or students) try Genius Hour. Students search a different topic each week with a few informal presentations at the end of the hour.

Check out this post for more information on Genius Hour.

Edutopia gives the 6 Essentials for starting Genius Hour in your classroom here.

Check out this interesting Blog post from a teacher that set-up Genius Hour in their class.

If you are already trying something like this in your classroom share your successes, challenges, or advice for peers in the comments section:)!

Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter

Okay, I admit it.  I am a sucker for documentaries and being born in 1963 also for the Che Guevara image toting, beret wearing revolutionary types (pseudo or otherwise).  Image was an important part of radicals' appeal during this era! So when I got a chance to go to the Museum of Photographic Arts with high school students from all over San Diego county to see a screening of a film about the Black Panther party, I didn't hesitate.  Amanda Wallace, the VAPA technician extraordinaire as well as a brilliant actor, Stephanie Cruz, JCCS teacher and an amazing improv actor, and Debbie Jaffe, JCCS teacher and just all around brilliant person, and I represented the rank and file of JCCS and many of our students attended as well.

When the lights went down and a very young crowd in place, the recipe for a disruptive day loomed as a distinct possibility. That didn't happen--the audience remained focused and attentive as for over an hour and a half, the filmmakers wove a stunning tale of political activism, radical chic, and eerily analogous footage (the  frustration of the citizens in Oakland, where the Panthers originated, responding to the violence of the police has disturbing echoes in contemporary footage out of Chicago and other places).  And the similarities became explicitly voiced when during the Question and Answer afterwards, former Panther Michael McCarty opined that the Black Lives Matter movement and the rash of shootings of black youth are of the same type as those of the 1960s.

"There are some things you can do," he told the rapt audience. "First, educate yourself.  Read, watch the news, be informed.  Second, educate others.  Third, organize.  Fourth, be suspicious when you hear something idiotic. And fifth, be involved."  What was impressive to me was that rather than regard this elderly man as some quaint relic, the students and teachers  listened with courtesy and respect.  The students were talking afterwards and they were talking about what they had just seen and heard. The film, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, is a model of the art of documentary film making.  In addition to a nation-wide tour of screenings, it will be broadcast this year on PBS.

The power of story is something I always come back to.  In these troubled times, in this divisive climate, and significantly, in an election year, the need for truths that I think truly represent what it means to be patriotic, all students need and deserve to have their realities challenged.