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?