We often say to one another, ‘That’s a good question,’ by which we usually mean, ‘I don’t know the answer’ or ‘I had not yet thought to ask that but it seems worth asking.’
We can begin to define a good question by taking a look at its opposite. A question can be ‘bad’ for a number of reasons. A question is only a strategy (for inquiry) and must therefore have a purpose or intention if we want to evaluate its quality.
So most broadly, a question could be said to be ‘bad’ if it either doesn’t have a purpose or intention or doesn’t accomplish that goal or intention (while also failing to cause some other effect that was unintended but still somehow positive).
A bad question can be said to be so if it’s irrelevant, imprecise, or uses unclear language.
A bad question will obscure rather than reveal what a student knows now.
Further, a bad question will deter rather than encourage–or allow and promote–a student to create new knowledge.
A question might be thought of as bad if it, used in formative assessment, yields no useable (formal or informal) data that a teacher can use to revise planned instruction.
Thus asked, a bad question stops both the teacher and student cold with no clear and practical path forward.
A bad question intimidates, confuses (though not all confusion is bad), or somehow causes a jarring emotion that makes the students ability to use their cortex as effectively as they would in a calmer state.
It could be based on faulty premises, it could be loaded with cognitive biases, logical fallacies, or other irrational patterns of thinking.
It could be outside of the Zone of Proximal Development for the person it’s asked to (i.e., too easy or too difficult).
It may not be too difficult (in terms of content knowledge) but its language or syntax could be unnecessarily complex. The result here is that the student gets the question ‘wrong’ even though the ‘knew the content.’
As we’ve clarified, a question is simply a strategy for learning. A tool. You might, then, think of a ‘bad question’ like a ‘bad tool’: it simply doesn’t do what it’s intended to do.
In education, this usually means that it fails to facilitate/promote learning in the short-term and/or long-term for the student.
A good question, of course, is different. While (mostly) ignoring the nuance of the concept of quality, there are some things we might consider generally qualify a question as good (note the purposely vague language–some things…might consider…generally qualify).
A good question–on a test, for example–will be efficient and precise relative to its purpose. If a specific academic standard the teacher wants to assess the student’s mastery of, the question will have to be written in a way that does exactly that: assesses their mastery of exactly that standard.
As we’ve discussed, it will not have ‘fat’–unnecessary words, overly complex vocabulary, or require other (unnecessary, unrelated, or still unlearned) knowledge or skills. Certainly, a question can have such language and require knowledge or skills unrelated to the specific standard being assessed provided that the teacher understands this–and thus understands that the student may get the question ‘wrong’ while potentially still mastering the standard.
See? It’s complicated.
Traditional education has long held that we should help students learn and they can best prove they’re learning by answering questions accurately. But answering questions accurately can’t possibly be the goal of education, only a strategy itself in pursuit of a larger goal.
The simplest criteria to evaluate the quality of a question, then, might be this: a good question helps students learn and learn how to learn in a sustainable, inquiry-based, student-led way. In its very best carnations, a bad question centers itself as a kind of academic bar for the student to leap over to prove themselves.
At its worst, a bad question halts the process of learning entirely through confusion, imprecision, and discouragement, misleading both the teacher and student as they make their way through the learning process. (See also What Is The Cognitive Load Theory?)
Costa’s Levels of Questioning — designed by educational researcher Art Costa — feature three tiers of questioning designed to promote higher-level thinking and inquiry.
Similar to Bloom’s taxonomy, Costa’s lower level prompts students to use more basic faculties; as students move up in levels, the questions prompt them to use more complex thinking skills. Through decades of research on human resilience, Dr. Costa also identified the 16 Habits of Mind, a set of behaviors that support students in navigating the challenges that often occur in school and life, in general. Several of Dr. Costa’s 16 habits — thinking interdependently, innovating, gathering data, and applying past knowledge to new situations — both require and reinforce higher levels of questioning.
There is a substantive amount of research that supports Dr. Costa’s schema. Newmann (1993) found that higher-order thinking compels students to “manipulate information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning,” and “expects students to solve problems and develop meaning for themselves,” which aligns with a constructivist view of education.
Costa’s Levels of Questioning are typically illustrated using the metaphor of a house with three floors:
Level 1:Gathering
Level 1 questions mainly require students to work with information ‘on the page.’ Answers to level 1 questions are typically literal; meaning, a student can literally point to the answer on a page.
We’ve previously written aboutBloom’s Taxonomy power verbs, so you can predict that Costa’s levels have their own set of power verbs, as well. Here are a few that you might find at the start of Level 1 questions:
Define
Describe
Memorize
Label
Identify
List
Observe
Restate
Rewrite
Repeat
Name
State
Recall
Recite
Locate
Select
Match
Show
Level 1 questions by content area might look like these examples:
Science: Label the parts of an animal cell.
Math: Recite the formula for finding the volume of a cylinder.
Social Studies: Match the name of the monarch to their respective country.
English Language Arts: Locate the place in the plot where the climax occurs.
You can see how most of these Level 1 power verbs require students to recall information, which is an important skill in its own right. Nonetheless, teachers should strive for the majority of their questions to fall in Level 2 or 3, which challenge students to use higher-order thinking skills.
Level 2:Processing
Level 2 questions go a step further than Level 1, prompting students to process information by ‘reading between the lines.’ While students may need to use literal information to formulate their responses, Level 2 requires them to process that information with what they already know in order to make new connections.
Here are some examples of Level 2 power verbs:
Compare
Contrast
Classify
Sort
Distinguish
Infer
Analyze
Separate
Discriminate
Combine
Assemble
Organize
Suppose
Level 2 questions by content area might show up in the following ways:
Science: Compare the processes of mitosis and meiosis.
Math: Classify the geometric shapes according to their number of sides and angles.
Social Studies: Assemble the following historical events in the order of significance, from most to least.
English Language Arts: Analyze the impact that the author’s tone has on the overall meaning of the text.
Can you see how Level 2 questions go a step further than Level 1? More than simply regurgitating information, learners take it and ‘do something’ with it. They categorize, make distinctions, and compare/contrast it against another part to see how it affects the whole. These kinds of skills can stimulate curiosity and build a bridge to the questions that really generate creativity and higher-level thinking.
Level 3:Applying
While Level 1 questions prompt students to work with input, and Level 2 questions challenge them to process that input in order to make new connections. Here, students engage in the highest-level thinking skills to create an output. This could result from making evaluations and analyses, testing solutions to various problems, or making predictions.
We’ve included some examples of Level 3 power verbs below:
Evaluate
Generalize
Construct
Imagine
Decide
Create
Judge
Analyze
Forecast
If/then
Predict
Rate
Justify
Speculate
Synthesize
Build
Hypothesize
Level 3 questions by content area might look like the following:
Science: Based on data from the last decade of hurricane activity in the southeast U.S., predict how the frequency of hurricane activity will change in the next ten years.
Math: Rate the probability of a presidential candidate winning the election based on securing the electoral votes from the following U.S. states: Florida, California, Virginia, New York, Illinois.
Social Studies: Create a social compact that considers the effects of globalization and technological advancement in the 21st century.
English Language Arts: Build an argument that defends or refutes mandatory employee vaccination policies in the United States.
Whether planning for discussion-based activities, project-based learning, or independent inquiry, teachers should strive to orient the majority of student thinking and engagement at Levels 2 and 3. Assessments that prompt students to recall basic facts (such as the date of a historical event, or the name of an author, or the formula for an equation) don’t really assess students’ ability to apply new skills or information to new contexts. A Level 2 or 3 question would challenge students to make connections with basic information. For example, instead of recalling a mere date, a more open-ended question would ask students to predict, based on the time in history that a particular event occurred, the likelihood of it recurring, given a similar sociopolitical atmosphere. Along the same lines, rather than recalling the names of famous authors, a teacher might challenge students to make an argument for how an author would write about a particular modern issue.
In “A Talk to Teachers,” James Baldwin described the paradox of education: “As one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which [they] are educated.” Level 2 (and mainly, level 3) questions aim to foster this kind of reaction in students, to cause them to tilt their heads, do double-takes, point out discrepancies, disrupt the status quo, identify flaws in current institutions, and create innovative solutions for those flaws. These are the questions that inspire us to come up with more questions, to think about our thinking, and to evolve — both as individuals and societies.
If the ultimate goal of education is for students to be able to answer questions effectively, then focusing on content and response strategies makes sense. If the ultimate goal of education is to teach students to think, then focusing on how we can help students ask better questions themselves might make sense, no?
Why Questions Are More Important Than Answers
The ability to ask the right question at the right time is a powerful indicator of authentic understanding. Asking a question that pierces the veil in any given situation is itself an artifact of the critical thinking teachers so desperately seek in students, if for no other reason than it shows what the student knows, and then implies the desire to know more.
Asking a question (using strategies to help students ask better questions, for example) is a sign of understanding, not ignorance; it requires both knowledge and then–critically–the ability to see what else you’re missing.
Questions are more important than answersbecause they reflect understanding and curiosity in equal portions. To ask a question is to see both backward and forward–to make sense of a thing and what you know about it, and then extend outward in space and time to imagine what else can be known, or what others might know. To ask a great question is to see the conceptual ecology of the thing.
In a classroom, a student can see a drop of water, a literary device, a historical figure, or a math theorem, but these are just worthless fragments. A student in biology studying a drop of water must see the water as infinitely plural–as something that holds life and something that gives life.
As a marker of life, and an icon of health.
It is a tool, a miracle, a symbol, and a matter of science.
They must know what’s potentially inside a drop of water and how to find out what’s actually inside that drop of water.
They must know what others have found studying water and what that drop of water means within and beyond the field of science.
They must know that water is never really just water.
Teacher Questions vs Student Questions
When teachers try to untangle this cognitive mess, they sacrifice personalization for efficiency. There are too many students, and too much content to cover, so they cut to the chase.
Which means then tend towards the universal over the individual–broad, sweeping questions intermingling with sharper, more concise questions that hopefully shed some light and cause some curiosity. In a class of 30 with an aggressively-paced curriculum map and the expectation that every student master the content regardless of background knowledge, literacy level, or interest in the material, this is the best most teachers can do.
This only a bottleneck, though, when the teacher asks the questions. When the student asks the question, the pattern is reversed. The individual student has little regard for the class’s welfare, especially when forming questions. They’re on the clock to say something, anything. Which is great, because questions–when they’re authentic–are automatically personal because they came up with them. They’re not tricks or guess-what-the-teacher’s-thinking.
A student couldn’t possibly capture the scale of confusion or curiosity of 30 other people; instead, they survey their thinking, spot both gaps and fascinations and form a question. This is the spring-loading of a Venus flytrap. The topic crawls around in the student’s mind innocently enough, and when the time is right—and the student is confident—the flower snaps shut. Once a student starts asking questions, that magic of learning can begin.
And the best part for a teacher? Questions reveal far more than answers ever might.
The Purpose of Questions
Thought of roughly as a kind of spectrum, four purposes of questions might stand out, from more “traditional” to more “progressive.”
“To be a little more abstract, a good question causes thinking–more questions. Better questions. It clarifies and reveals. It causes hope.
A bad question stops thinking. It confuses and obscures. It causes doubt.”
(More Traditional) Academic View
In a traditional academic setting, the purpose of a question is to elicit a response that can be assessed (i.e., answer this question so I can see what you know).
(Less Traditional) Curriculum-Centered View
Here, a ‘good question’ matters more than a good answer, as it demonstrates the complexity of student understanding of a given curriculum.
(More Progressive) Inquiry View
As confusion or curiosity markers that suggest a path forward for inquiry, and then are iterated and improved based on learning. (Also known as question-based learning.)
(More Progressive Still) Self-Directed View
In a student-centered circumstance, a question illuminates possible learning pathways forward irrespective of curriculum demands. The student’s own knowledge demands–and their uncovering–center and catalyze the learning experience.
To be a little more abstract, a good question causes thinking–more questions. Better questions. It clarifies and reveals. It causes hope. A bad question stops thinking. It confuses and obscures. It causes doubt.
The Relative Strengths of Questions
Good questions can reveal subtle shades of understanding–what this student knows about this topic in this context
Questions promote inquiry and learning how to learn over proving what you know
Questions fit in well with the modern “Google” mindset
Used well, questions can promote personalized learning as teachers can change questions on the fly to meet student needs
The Relative Weaknesses of Questions
Questions depend on language, which means literacy, jargon, confusing syntax, academic diction, and more can all obscure the learning process
Accuracy of answers can be overvalued, which makes the confidence of the answerer impact the quality of the response significantly
“Bad questions” are easy to write and deeply confusing, which can accumulate to harm a student’s sense of self-efficacy, as well as their tendency to ask them on their own
7 Common Written Assessment Question Forms
Questions as written assessment (as opposed to questions as inquiry, questions to guide self-directed learning, or questions to demonstrate understanding) most commonly take the following forms in writing:
Matching
True/False
Multiple Choice
Short Answer
Diagramming
Essay
Open-Ended
Questioning In The Classroom & Self-Directed Learning
For years, questions have guided teachers in the design of units and lessons in classrooms, often through the development of essential questions that all students should be able to reasonably respond to and that can guide their learning of existing and pre-mapped content.
In the TeachThought Self-Directed Learning Model, learners are required to create their own curriculum through a series of questions that emphasize self-knowledge, citizenship, and communal and human interdependence. In this model, existing questions act as a template to uncover potential learning pathways.
Cognitive Dissonance is the cognitively-uncomfortable act of holding two seemingly competing beliefs simultaneously. If you believe that Freedom of Speech is the foundation of democracy, but then are presented with a perspective (through Socratic-style questioning in the classroom from the teacher, for example), you arrive (or the student does) at a crossroads where they have to adjust something–either their belief or their judgment about the validity of the question itself.
In this way, questions can promote Cognitive Dissonance, meaning a good question can change a student’s mind, beliefs, or tendency to examine their own beliefs. Questions, cognitive, and self-reflection go hand-in-hand.
The Role of ‘Lower-Level’ Questions in the Classroom
Lower-level questions inquire at ‘lower levels’ of various learning taxonomies.
These are often ‘recall’ questions that are based in fact—definitions, dates, names, biographical details, etc. Education is thought to have focused (without having been there, who knows for sure?) on these lower levels, and ‘low’ is bad in academics, right? ‘Lower-level’ thinking implies a lack of ‘higher-level’ thinking, so instead of analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, and creating, students are defining, recalling, and memorizing, the former of which make for artists and designers and innovators, and the latter of which make for factory workers.
And that part, at least, is (mostly) true. Recall and memorization aren’t the stuff of understanding, much less creativity and wisdom, except that they are. Bloom’s Taxonomy was not created to segregate ‘good thinking’ from ‘bad thinking.’ In their words, “Our attempt to arrange educational behaviors from simple to complex was based on the idea that a particular simple behavior may become integrated with other equally simple behaviors to form a more complex behavior.” In this way, the taxonomy is simply one way of separating the strands of thinking like different colored yarn–a kind of visual scheme to see the pattern, contrasts, and even sequence of cognitive actions.
Nowhere does it say that definitions, names, labels, and categories are bad–and if it did, we’d have to wonder about the taxonomy rather than assuming that they were. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that if a student doesn’t know there was a war, and that it was fought in the United States in the 1800s, and that it was purportedly over states’ rights, and that both culture, industry, and agriculture all impacted the hows, whens, and whys of the war, that ‘higher-level thinking strategies’ aren’t going to be very useful.
In short, lower-level questions can illuminate and establish foundational knowledge to build a more complex and nuanced understanding of content. They provide a foothold for thinking. To further the point, in 5 Common Misconceptions About Bloom’s Taxonomy, Grant Wiggins explains that the phrases ‘higher-order’ and ‘lower-order’ don’t appear anywhere in the taxonomy.
Essential Questions in the Classroom
Grant Wiggins defined an essential question as “broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable.”
Examples of Essential Questions
What is justice?
Is art a matter of taste or principles?
How far should we tamper with our biology and chemistry?
Is science compatible with religion?
Is an author’s view privileged in determining the meaning of a text?
A question is essential when it:
causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;
provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;
requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;
stimulates vital, ongoing rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;
sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;
naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.
Think-Pair-Share is a collaborative learning strategy that promotes discussion and allows students to share their thoughts and questions with a partner before sharing with the larger group.
Process
Think: Pose a thought-provoking question or problem related to the lesson. Give students a few minutes to think about their responses individually.
Pair: Have students pair with a partner to discuss their thoughts and questions. Encourage them to come up with additional questions during their discussion.
Share: Pairs share their questions and ideas with the class. This can be done by having each pair present their most interesting question or facilitating a larger group discussion where pairs contribute to a growing list of questions.
Follow-Up: Use the questions generated from the Think-Pair-Share activity to guide further inquiry, research projects, or class discussions.
10. Wonderwall
Description: A Wonder Wall is a dedicated space in the classroom where students can post questions that come to mind during lessons, discussions, or independent activities. It is a visual and interactive tool to foster a culture of inquiry.
Process
Create the Space: Designate a section of a wall or a bulletin board as the Wonder Wall. Provide sticky notes, markers, and a way for students to add questions easily.
Introduce the Concept: Explain to students that the Wonder Wall is a place for them to post any questions about the topics being studied or other related curiosities. Encourage them to write their questions on sticky notes and place them on the wall.
Regularly Review and Address Questions: Set aside time each week to review the questions on the Wonder Wall. Select a few questions to investigate further as a class or to incorporate into future lessons and activities.
Encourage Peer Interaction: Allow students to read and respond to their peers’ questions on the Wonder Wall. They can add comments, suggestions, or additional questions, creating a collaborative and dynamic learning environment.
Integrate into Curriculum: Use the questions from the Wonder Wall to guide inquiry-based projects, research assignments, or class discussions. This ensures that student curiosity directly influences learning and keeps students engaged.
A Guide To Questioning In The Classroom; image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad
Newport Beach police have launched an inquiry into NBA player Josh Giddey after allegations surfaced on social media that he had an inappropriate relationship with a minor, authorities confirmed Tuesday.
Police provided few details about the ongoing investigation but said it involved a minor and that detectives were looking into whether a crime had occurred, said Sgt. Steve Oberon of the Newport Beach Police Department.
The police inquiry comes after the NBA said Friday the league had begun its own investigation into whether Giddey, who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder, had a relationship with a minor, CBS Sports reported.
An NBA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Questions about Giddey’s possible involvement with a minor first emerged on the social media platform X, where pictures and videos began to spread online.
The images of Giddey with a female, who is allegedly underage, circulated online during Thanksgiving weekend.
Giddey declined to address the allegations on Friday.
“I understand the question, obviously, but no comment right now,” he said.
The inquiry into the Joburg CBD fire has hit yet another delay as Home Affairs’ legal bid to deport several survivors has come to light.
The commission of inquiry into the devastating Marshalltown fire, which claimed the lives of 77 people and made international headlines earlier this year, has apparently been unaware of the Department of Home Affairs’ intention to deport some prospective witnesses.
The two-phase “politically-free” commission of inquiry was appointed on 13 September by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi at request of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Commission of inquiry into Joburg CBD fire
Chaired by retired justice Sisi Khampepe, the independent body has been tasked with:
Investigating the prevalence of hijacked buildings in the Johannesburg CBD;
Establishing the cause of the deadly blaze which tore through the five-storey Usindiso Building on 31 August; and
Identifying those who must be held accountable for the tragedy
Disturbing video recorded by a bystander appears to show a deadly encounter in which a California Highway Patrol officer shot a man repeatedly after a struggle in the middle of the 105 Freeway in Watts on Sunday afternoon.
The CHP confirmed Monday that a shooting took place on the freeway, but did not provide basic information.
The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office confirmed the person had died, though it did not provide identification, pending notification of family. A cause of death was not released.
CHP officials said they responded to the freeway about 3:15 p.m. Sunday after receiving multiple calls about a man walking through traffic near the Wilmington Avenue exit.
After the trooper made contact with the pedestrian, “a struggle ensued and an officer-involved shooting occurred,” the CHP said in a release. Authorities said over a police radio that the man had a Taser and fired it at the officer, leading to the shooting, according to audio posted on the Citizen mobile app.
The CHP directed all inquiries to the California Department of Justice, which investigates police shootings in which unarmed people are killed, according to the department.
The state DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The video begins with a CHP officer on top of another person as the two struggle on the pavement in the middle of what appears to be a closed stretch of freeway.
After a few seconds, while the two tussle, a gun seems to go off and a bullet ricochets off the pavement near the body of the man, who remains on the ground.
The CHP officer then stands up and shoots at least four additional times at the prone man, the video shows.
The man lies motionless for the rest of the minute-long video. The CHP officer remains by the body with his gun drawn.
Travis Norton, a law enforcement officer who runs the California Assn. of Tactical Officers After Action Review, said video is a limited way to understand a police shooting.
“It is hard to diagnose without knowing what the officer saw, experienced and interpreted was happening,” Norton said. “All I see is a very short scuffle. I see the suspect point something that appears to look like some sort of weapon. … From the video, without knowing anything else about it, the use of deadly force appears appropriate.”
But other experts said the use of force raises many questions.
Ed Obayashi, a police shootings expert who investigates the incidents for numerous law enforcement agencies in California, said investigators will immediately ask the officer why he was engaging with the person without a partner or backup in the immediate vicinity.
Obayashi also said that investigators will look into why the officer felt the need to shoot the man after standing up and disengaging from him.
“Why did you shoot him while he was on the ground?” Obayashi said investigators will ask. “You separated yourself from the individual; why was he still a threat to you?”
Inquiry-based learning is an approach to learning guided by students through questions, research, and/or curiosity.
An inquiry-based learning strategy is simply a way to facilitate inquiry during the learning process. It might be useful to think of ways to suppress inquiry to emphasize the strategies that might be used to promote it.
Years ago in the (tongue very much in cheek) 12 Ways To Kill A Learner’s Curiosity, I said that limiting choice, thinking in black and white, and focusing on answers instead of questions were just a few ways to stifle inquiry and curiosity.
In Strategies For Creating An Inquiry-Driven Classroom, professional development facilitator Irena Nayfeld offered that “children want to understand the world around them, and naturally reveal their interests by asking questions – sometimes even too many questions! As educators, we may feel pressure to keep going with our intended lesson plan or to get to our ‘point.’”
Let’s take a look at how to promote inquiry-based learning in your classroom.
14 Ways To Promote Inquiry-Based Learning In The Classroom
1. Instructional design
One of the most powerful ways to promote inquiry learning in your classroom is to design activities, lessons, and units that benefit from, promote, or require inquiry. Without ‘room’ or a ‘role’ for inquiry in your classroom, it will be difficult to ’cause’ sustainably.
Question-based learning is a TeachThought framework for learning through the formation and revision of questions over the course of a specific period of time. You can read more about Question-Based Learning. This also can be combined with student-led orself-directed learning where students ask their own questions, which, if done in an authentic (to the student) way, should result in more sustainable inquiry as well.
By defining and itemizing individual facets of inquiry and framing what it looks like at different proficiency levels, students can be more clear about exactly what you’re hoping to see them capable of and ‘doing’ as a result of the activity or lesson.
4. Model inquiry
This can be done in many ways, including dialogic conversation, Socratic Seminars, and think-alouds, among others.
5. Use question and statement stems
Sometimes, students don’t know the mechanisms or patterns of inquiry, and question and statement stems can act as training wheels to help get students moving toward sustained, authentic inquiry. You can see some examples of sentence stems for higher-level discussion, for example.
6. Intentional Feedback Loops
Reward ‘Cognitive Stamina’ by encouraging students to ‘dwell’ on a topic or extend inquiry even when hitting dead-ends, the assignment is ‘over,’ or they’re unsure where to ‘go’ next. Consider some kind of ‘inquiry-driven grading’ where you adjust grading processes to accommodate this unique approach to learning.
The brain works through feedback loops. Roughly put, students do something, and something happens in response. The tighter and more intentional the feedback loops are for applying inquiry, the more likely it is to ‘stick.’
Reward points for great questions. Even consider assigning ‘points value’ to great questions–perhaps even higher ‘point values’ than the answers themselves.
You could also provide ‘levels’ for students to progress through (based on points, for example). Reward curiosity with immediate positive feedback. (See #6 above.)
8. Reframe content
Math, science, social studies, language arts, and other traditional content areas overflow with fascinating concepts, topics, histories, legacies, people, etc. ‘Position’ content in a new way that is fresh, provocative, or even controversial (see below). Inquiry is more natural when ideas are interesting.
9. Controversy sells
‘Banned books’ or other (mild to moderate) controversies can go a long way in sustaining student engagement–which sets up the stage for inquiry.
10. Clarify the role of mindset in inquiry
This can be done partly by clarifying the value of mistakes and uncertainty in the learning process.
11. Use ‘smart’ learning spaces
Design physical learning spaces to promote interaction, access to digital and physical media, and spontaneous collaboration. Artfully design spaces with color, light, and furniture, etc.
12. Leverage interdisciplinary learning
Work with teachers across content areas and grade levels to increase interdependence and ‘gravity’ of student work
13. The power of ‘place’
Connect students with experts and local organizations to embed work in places native to that student. This is obviously more complex than can be explained as a line item in a single post but just imagine the role of ‘setting’–how much more at ease and natural and connected students are in places native to them–communities or homes or neighborhoods or streets or cities they care about and have a history with that is inseparable from the student.
Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Demarcus Robinson was robbed of his luxury jewelry at gunpoint early Friday morning outside a Los Angeles hotel, according to media reports.
Robinson, 29, was leaving a hotel when two armed men approached and demanded his jewelry, law enforcement sources told TMZ.
The thieves reportedly made off with $100,000 worth of Robinson’s belongings — including a luxury watch.
The Los Angeles Police Department did not immediately respond to an inquiry for additional information on the robbery.
