Prof. Noelia Tarquini. - Motivation made easy - you can start a fire with only one question.

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Motivation made easy: you can start a fire (in your  classroom) with only one question.  Prof. Noelia Tarquini   All learning is a form of enquiry. It is by asking questions that we learn about the world.  The way questions are asked to children can have immediate and long‐term effects.  Teachers  use  questions  to  motivate  students,  to  test  their  knowledge,  to  promote  reflection  and  analysis.  Questions  are  thought  to  offer  intellectual  challenge,  to  encourage  students  to  think.  Furthermore,  they  can  be  used  to  stimulate  higher  order  or  lower  level  thinking. Now, asking the right question is the essence of teaching as it can  provide a bridge  between teaching and learning. A question can stimulate students´ curiosity and invite them to  ask. This workshop will give you some tips on how to work with questions in the classroom.    “A good question makes the mind buzz, it offers a challenge to thinking, a search for  understanding”. (Fisher, R. 2005) 

    Examples of open‐ended questions:                                         What do you think…?  How do you know…?  Why do you think that…?  Do you have a reason..?  How can you be sure…?  Is this always so…?  Is there another way/ reason/idea?  What if…? What if not..?  1

Where is there another example of this…?  What do you think happens next…?      Why questions?  • Focus attention on a topic.  • Challenge students   • Direct students ´thinking in a particular way   • Reinforce learnt material  • Assess students   • Encourage students to be actively engaged in learning   • Encourage reflection on learning   • Motivate students enquiry   • Help students make connections   • Help students  clarify their understanding   • Structure or guide the learning of a task   • Revision of content   • Model questioning and thinking   • Identify gaps in students´learning   • Provide opportunities for student learning through discussion     Question cycle:    Ask the question              Period of Silence   Simplify the question             students’ answer   Period of silence               Discuss the answer       

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Sample 4: Working with a Story. What do you think… will do  next? How do you think.. Feels about..?

Is there another way the story could end?

Do you agree with…  about…? Why?

In your opinion should this character do  this…or that?

Do you think this character is being..  When he/she does…?

   

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Sample 5: video clip.  Questions that focus on attention : What can you see? What are they wearing? Questions that invite further enquiry: What kind of personality do you think the person has? Would you sit next to him/her on a bus? Why? Questions to encourage students to theorise – What do you think they are trying to show with this video? Who do you think the message on this video is for? why? What do you think the topic/theme of this video is? How would you help to improve this situation? Enabling skills Processes Operations

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  Thinking progress:  Where have we moved forward?  What do you understand more?  What have you discovered or learnt?  What  makes sense now?  What is more confusing than you first thought?  What do we need to work on next?  

        ¾ Clarity and Precision:  • What does… mean?  • What is an example of…?  • Can you explain… in a different way?      ¾ Reasoning:  • Why might someone think…?  • What are the reasons for thinking…?  • What are the reasons against thinking?  • What conclusions can you draw from…?  • Do those reasons really lead to that conclusion?  

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Sample 7: Poems/ video

If you were Sarah, what else would you not take out?

What do you think was Sarah´s “awful fate”?

What woud you have done if you were Sarah´s father? How could we encourage children to be more careful about garbage?

What could we do at school to make children conscious about the environment? 

   Sample 8:Back to the future. Video The Time machine. H.G.Wells Book Who do you think made good use  of the machine? Why?

In your opinion, would the time machine be a  good or bad invention?  Why?

I f you had the chance to travel in time, what year would you go to ? why?

 

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Towards an enquiring classroom: • • • • • • • •

What conclusions can we draw? What are some ideas? What are other alternatives? If…were true, what would follow? How can we explain more about? What are some reasons to agree? What are some reasons to disagree? Why???  

  Bibliography:    Fisher, R. (2005) Teaching children to learn.  Ch. 2 Questioning to learn. Nelson Thornes. UK    Fisher, R. (2005) Teaching children to think. Nelson Thornes. UK    http://www.slideshare.net/MariaMarthaManetteMadrid/the‐art‐of‐questioning‐12787198  recovered April 2013.  http://www.slideshare.net/suziea/effective‐questioning recovered April 2013     

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