Guiding Students to ask the "Right" Questions

Formal observations and walk-throughs, key components of Charlotte Danielson's Framework, can be scary, humbling experiences for any teacher. A teacher can feel like a master of her domain until the dreaded administrative visit. Having a third party in the classroom can be a distraction--for teacher and students alike. My previous school was a large, underperforming urban high school. Our classrooms were frequently visited--announced and unannounced. The walk-throughs and formal observations were so frequent that we joked that we should have coffee and donuts on hand for visitors. While we often felt like we under a microscope, we learned to take advantage of these visits. Why not take advantage of it?

How can I leverage this visit to improve the experience of my students?

It is that mentality I carry with me as I continue to grow as a teacher of English and Social Studies. If I must have this observation, how can I leverage it for my students? After the observation, I debriefed with my observer. The focus of our post-observation debrief was student questions and the formulation of them, most particularly during a discussion. The lesson was a fishbowl discussion, so questioning peers was integral to the activity. Not only were students interacting inside the fishbowl, but those in the outside circle were backchanneling on Today's Meet. Both forums showed evidence of lower level, closed questions. My immediate thought:

How can I propel my students to think critically about the content and formulate higher level questions?

Research 

Through independent research, I discovered the The Question Formulation Technique through these articles: 

Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana

The Right Questions by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana.

While Rothstein, Santana and other colleagues created this protocol 20 years ago, it is still relevant today, if not more so than ever before. As the push for inquiry-based classrooms continues to spread, we need to teach students how to ask questions. I have long been a proponent and practitioner of turning the traditional classroom dynamic on its head. Education is not about my learning, it is about the learning of the students in the classroom. They should be asking the questions, not me. If they are asking the questions, they are engaged and learning. 

The QFT is simple to understand. There are four steps (slide 15) that are brief and can easily be applied to most anything. In order to organically implement into instruction, I decided that the students would follow this process as a means to review for the midterm exam. 

Day One

After completing the initial introduction to the QFT, students broke into groups of four to try it out. I created a Question Focus (slide 14) and let them loose! They wrote questions on post-it notes (my favorite ed tech tool!) and sorted them into "open questions" and "closed questions."

Day Two

On day two, the students moved back into the same groups and touched upon Step #3 of the QFT: Improve Questions. Then, using a Google Form (my true love in life!) students submitted all questions which filtered into a Google Sheet. I reviewed the Sheet and pushed out the link, so each student could make a copy. For the next 30 minutes, students reflected upon the questions (135 total!) and gauged their own understanding of the content via the questions. Individually, students sorted the questions into three categories: novice, intermediate and master by numbering and color coding each cell. At the conclusion of class, we discussed what the purpose of the spreadsheet was. Students understood that they should use it as a means to prioritize and plan their studying.

Day Three

Then, on day three, we revisited Step #3 by converting questions into the opposite type. For example, students turned an open question into a closed question. The objective of this activity was for students to understand the difference of the two types. We discussed that while both types have a place in the classroom, we need to formulate more open questions.

Students again dove into their individual spreadsheets to identify the questions (Step #4) with which they did not feel confident in their understanding. They extracted the key words from the questions and jotted them down on post-it notes, which were then placed on the board. We used the post-its to play a classroom version of "Hedbandz." The objective of the game is guess the term on a card, which is attached to a headband on Player A's head. In pursuit of an answer, Player A asks Player B closed questions. Here's a slight twist that I threw in: Player B had to choose post-its of topics they felt they had mastered.

After 15-20 minutes, the game came to an end and we moved into a full group discussion for further clarification of the content. It is this part of the lesson that I would change next time. Next time, I will divide the classroom space into two sections: group discussion and quiet review. In order to accommodate all learners, I want to create safe spaces for studying, whether a student wants to speak to others or independently review.

Reflection and Vision

Pushing students to ask the right questions and reflect upon their learning are my two goals for this last quarter of the year. I will continue to spiral the QFT into instruction. For example, students were given 5 minutes today to work with this Question Focus (based on our essential question for this portion of the unit): Judaism, Christianity and Islam are connected. In the coming weeks, I am going to "bump" up the expectations of the questions. Now, I am pleased that they are asking more open questions, but the goal is for them to differentiate between low-level and high-level questions.

I am also starting to notice more attempts by students to ask thoughtful questions on our weekly discussion boards. I joke that discussion boards are not named "response boards" for a reason. The boards are a place for intellectual dialogue. Students may not understand how to have intellectual dialogue, which goes above and beyond simply listening and agreeing. Through the explicit infusion of these skills into instructional practice, it is my hope that students will be able to engage more deeply with the content.

Below are the slides that I created to walk the students through the QFT. We will continue to refer back to them throughout the year.

Using Passions to Reconcile Changes in the Educational Landscape

About an hour until game for the NCAA National Championship, and here I am feverishly attempting to finish another post. It might come as no surprise that the concepts of team and common goal have been on my mind recently.

I cannot remember my life without basketball. My dad taught me how to play on our backyard court. In third grade, I started playing basketball for the HGA Cougars. During elementary school, my family traveled to watch my future high school's teams play. Then, in ninth grade, I joined the CCHS Cardinals, the team I'd been studying for at least six years. My college alma mater, Saint Joseph's University, has its own storied basketball team. My first teaching job came with a junior varsity coaching job, which eventually turned into a varsity coaching job. One of my teams even made our mark on school history by qualifying for state playoffs for the first time ever!

I do not know what life is or feels like without this game. 

When March rolls around, I finally get to share my passion with so many others. For a short three week period, we, as a country, pause and give credit to college athletes. We begin to feel like we intimately know them. We love to hear stories about who played together in high school or on AAU teams. We try to pick out the tournament's Cinderella team. We hear phrases like "the best player in the country you've never heard of" (more on him later). We learn about the everlasting effects of a strong coach. The NCAA tournament is a vivid component of our national consciousness.

What is it about this game? Why did it steal my heart? Why is it one of my passions? What has it taught me? How can I use to empower others?

Team. Common goal.

I no longer spend every day after school in the gym, and while I miss those times, I use them to fuel my instruction. As the influx of technology and changing educational philosophies bombard educators, I rely upon my love of basketball to guide me.

Implementing cooperative learning experiences in the classroom is my everyday equivalent of basketball. Most often students will find the desks arranged in groups of four in my classroom. When assigning a new task, I'll direct students to work together. My students practice skills, like writing claims or drafting questions, over and over, much like the 20 foul shots we had to do every day at practice. Consider the Jigsaw method or Novel in an Hour strategy. Students break apart the whole, then must come back together to make sense of that whole piece. The team has to achieve the common goal.

The 21st century classroom looks more and more like a basketball team's practice than it does the classrooms of the past. Some students have to watch tape. Others are going through drills at one end of the court, while some others are playing 3-on-3 at the opposite end. The American education system, also part of our national identity, is under attack. Teachers are consistently being pressured to innovate, create, and whatever else any other buzzword dictates at the moment. Many experts may be able to suggest different strategies, tools and techniques to implement into the classroom. What experts are not able to tell us is exactly what the school experience is going to look like in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years.

Will school still be held from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm? Will we still have four core content areas? Will students still need to physically attend school every day? Will teachers hold office hours? Will teachers deliver lessons online or in person? Will teachers be able to work from Starbucks (yes, please!)? Will sick days be a thing of the past? Will students be assigned to study hall? Will students still need hall passes? What will assessments look like?

The world is changing, and along with it, our job responsibilities and our daily workflow. We, as the select group who gets to teach America's next generation, must change with the rest of the world. There are many what ifs floating around nowadays. We must take the reins and steer the American education system in the best direction for students. Their stories, much like DeAndre Bembry's or as the rest of America knows him "the best player you've never heard of," must be shared. In order to flourish, students deserve to have networks, like playing for AAU, outside of their school building. Seek out the Jim Boeheims, Roy Williams, Pat Summits, Shaka Smarts, Phil Martellis, Geno Auriemmas and Jay Wrights of the teaching sphere. Learn from them. Celebrate them. Emulate them. We owe that to our students.

In this historic period of transition and transformation in the American education system, we need to rediscover our own passions and allow them to guide us, so we can lead our students towards the common goal.