License to Ask

Questions by Oberazzi
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

One message which came through strongly from the INSET session I mentioned in the last post was how much we need to stimulate a sense of curiosity by prodding, encouraging and cajoling students into asking questions … but asking the right questions and in the right ways. The significance of this in enhancing learning was emphasised just a day later when this Mind/Shift article was posted – For Students, Why the Question is More Important Than the Answer

Coming up with the right question involves vigorously thinking through the problem, investigating it from various angles, turning closed questions into open-ended ones and prioritizing which are the most important questions to get at the heart of the matter.

The article highlights that we need to give the students ‘license to ask’ questions and to enable this we should:

• provide sufficient time for them to think through what they want to ask
• enable it to be acceptable for some to ask many questions whilst others only come up with a few … but that it’s important for everyone to contribute
• not judge answers
• note each question as stated.

Now that all sounds like a rather time-consuming exercise if undertaken in class time. Nevertheless if it’s important enough we’ll make the time … though perhaps can’t afford to be so fastidious on a regular basis. Perhaps then ICT can offer an alternative way?

Typecast is an online application specifically geared towards facilitating student questions. The principle is that you pose a stimulus idea about which students could ask questions (maybe an image, news article, paragraph of text or short video). You then share a link to it with your students who can then begin posting their questions. What’s more, they can ‘vote’ questions up or down, so if they see someone has asked a question to which they would also like to know the answer, they can vote it up. Like many things this isn’t an activity you would just drop on the students and expect success, but with a little preparatory guidance, it offers an alternative way of soliciting questions and might provide a channel for those who would be reticent about asking questions in class.

Using Typecast offers the possibility of students preparing in advance for a new topic by encouraging them to formulate questions about the topic. This means that you’re already aware of what the misconceptions might be, what the students already know and therefore what might be the most effective route forward in starting the unit. You also have the possibility of providing certain answers which bring the whole class up to a common starting point. Typecast questioning could also be used for checking progress and understanding as a topic proceeds or towards the end of the topic as a way of checking whether concepts have been embedded.

How about taking things a step further? How about students (perhaps in pairs/groups) taking on the role of prviding the answers. Or why not make full use of the online aspect and invite participation from an external ‘expert’ from whom students can draw out information through their questions? Or even use Typecast as a way for connecting with parents and using it as a tool through which they can ask questions about a school strategy or initiative?

Typecast – not quite a discussion board … a Q&A board perhaps?

 

 

Mandala Maker

Yesterday during an INSET day, we were treated to an informative session from Jane Simister on active learning techniques we can employ with our students. As is my wont, when each activity was introduced, I couldn’t help thinking how ICT might be employed … not that that would always be appropriate or desirable.

One of the techniques helpful in drawing out the essential significant points in a topic is using a Mandala; a framework to scaffold students’ interrogation of what they know. These can be completed independently or in pairs/groups. Using a blank Mandala, the central topic is written in the core, then sub-topics in the next ring and so forth, gradually teasing out the important points which describe the topic as a whole. Useful as a revision technique; useful for planning extended writing activities.

On the fantastic Classtools website, Russell Tarr has an interactive Mandala creator, although described there as a Target diagram, and this completed version gives you an idea of what a finished product might look like:

Click here for larger version

Useful though that is, it has the drawback of a fixed number of sectors which might not be appropriate for all topics. Having been unsuccessful in finding anything which might address that, I wondered if it might be possible to create my own customisable Mandala creator. Since it look very similar to the doughnut charts found in Excel, it was to that that I turned. After a little mental huffing and puffing I got to something which works.

Mandala Template Generator

By inputting the number of sectors you want in each ring, a blank chart template is automatically created which can then be printed off for writing onto … or for the more adept, maybe even annotating on screen. What I couldn’t quite figure out was how to have different numbers of sub-sections in different segments, if you needed it. As it stands, the finished product will always be symmetrical.

So there’s your challenge: how might this be adapted to increase its flexibility? I’ve left the sheet which performs all the calculations visible if you want to interrogate and/or adapt that … or maybe you have a slicker method?

Am I now digitally literate?

I like pomegranates … but I rarely buy them. I see them on the counter in the shop, am tempted for a moment, but then remember the zen-like patience needed to extract the delicious little jewels at the rate of a few morsels per minute. Either that or take out chunks at at a time and endure the additional flavour of bitter pith. But what has all this to do with ICT? Well surely there has to be a better way of deseeding a pomegranate … we’ve sky-craned a vehicle onto the surface of a planet tens of millions of miles away for goodness sake! Now I didn’t expect there to be a technical solution necessarily, but I did hope that Google might know if it could be done.

In less than a minute I had the answer (on an iPod Touch), had watched a video and in no more than three more minutes was drooling over a perfectly juicy spoonful of pomegranate seeds … and then several more.

What a wonderful little learning episode in which a problem was posed, solution sought, alternative possibilities skimmed, single solution chosen, then executed. A known unknown to a known in under five minutes. It may only be a small change, but my life is now enriched and more enjoyable thanks to Google, YouTube, the producer of the video and the iPod Touch. Just think if you could do that every day … several times!

Pomegranate is back on the menu!