This post was originally published in 2019 and updated in 2024
by Terrell Heick
1. In the article, headline, or social share, ‘who’ is saying ‘what’? That is, what specific author and publication are making what kind of claim about what topic or ideas?
2. Is what’s being stated or claimed fact or opinion?
3. Does this headline seem true? (This is especially critical for ‘fact-based’ headlines.) If so, by whose standards? Who would disagree with it and why? How can it be fact-checked? Is the author using ‘grey areas’ of ‘truth’ in a way that seems designed to cause a stir, cast doubt, influence thinking, or otherwise change the opinion of readers?
4. Is this headline entirely ‘true’/accurate or based instead on partially true information/data? Misleading information is often based on partial truths and then reframed to fit a particular purpose: to cause an emotion such as anger or fear that leads to an outcome of some kind: a ‘like,’ donation, purchase, signup, vote, etc.
5. Are there any embedded logical fallacies in the headline itself–especially straw man arguments, emotional appeals, or charged language intended to polarize, rally, or otherwise ‘engage’ readers?
6. Is the topic the headline is based on important? Worth understanding more deeply?
7. Who would this seem to benefit if accepted as ‘true’?
8. Is this information, angle, or ‘take’ new or something that’s been said before (and either fact-checked or debunked)?
9. Is the data (fact-based) or position (opinion-based) inherent in the headline shared by other credible publishers or does it stand in contrast to the ‘status quo’? If the latter, how does this affect the headline?
10. What background information would I need to be able to evaluate its credibility? Where can I get more information on the topics in the headline to better evaluate its credibility? What do I stand to gain or lose if I accept this as true?
11. Does the ‘news story’ accurately represent the ‘big picture’ or is it something ‘cherry-picked’(in or out of context) designed to cause an emotional response in the reader?
For the second set of questions to think critically about news headlines, we’re turning to the News Literacy Project, a media standards project that created a set of questions to help students think critically about news headlines.
12. Gauge your emotional reaction. Is it strong? Are you angry? Are you intensely hoping that the information turns out to be true or false?
13. Reflect on how you encountered this. Was it promoted on a website? Did it show up in a social media feed? Was it sent to you by someone you know?
14. Consider the headline or message:
a. Does it use excessive punctuation or ALL CAPS for emphasis?
b. Does it claim containing a secret or telling you something that ‘the media’ doesn’t want you to know?
c. Don’t stop at the headline. Keep exploring!
15. Is this information designed for easy sharing, like a meme?
16. Consider the source of information:
a. Is it a well-known source?
b. Is there a byline (an author’s name) attached to this piece? Does that author have any specific expertise or experience?
c. Go to the website’s ‘About’ section. Does the site describe itself as a ‘fantasy news’ or ‘satirical news’ site? What else do you notice–or not notice?
17. Does the example you’re evaluating have a date on it?
18. Does the example cite a variety of sources, including official and expert sources? Does this example’s information appear in reports from (other) news outlets?
19. Does the example hyperlink to other quality sources?
20. Can you confirm, using a reverse image search, that any images in your example are authentic (i.e., haven’t been altered or taken from another context)?
21. If you searched for this example on a fact-checking site such as snopes.com, factcheck.org, or politifact.com, is there a fact-check that labels it as less than true?
Remember:
It is easy to clone an existing website and create fake tweets to fool people
AI and ‘deep fakes’ are become increasingly commonplace
Bots are active on social media and are designed to dominate conversations and spread propaganda.
Propaganda and/or misinformation often use a real image from an unrelated event.
Debunk examples of misinformation whenever you see them. It’s good for democracy!
You can download the full ‘checkology’ pdf here and find more resources at checkology.org
FLATBUSH, Brooklyn (WABC) — Tensions boiled after officers fatally shot a man inside his East 21st Street apartment in Flatbush on Friday evening.
One officer was struck in the head after bottles were hurled at them.
Police sauy they were serving a warrant on a suspect wanted for multiple homicides after being tipped off about his whereabouts.
Investigators say officers were allowed into the apartment, and that is when they saw Vilmond Jean Baptiste, 38, hiding in the bathtub, fully dressed with his knife.
“The members from the warrant squad gave numerous commands to the male. They gave commands to get out of the tub, to show his hands, and then they realized that he was armed with a knife and then they gave him numerous commands to drop the knife,” said NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey.
The sergeant tried to deploy his taser, but the taser did not work. That is when the suspect came out of the bathroom with a knife and almost attempted to stab the sergeant.
Police officials say at least three officers discharged their firearms, striking Baptiste.
They say Baptiste is a strong person of interest in two separate homicides that resulted in the death of three people, including a stabbing in July where a 54-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man were both stabbed to death. Investigators say he is also the suspect in the fatal stabbing of a 66-year-old in Flatlands back in August.
“His M.O. seems to be he begins to date older women and then they allow him to reside in his house to use narcotics. The relationship was romantic in nature,” said NYPD Chief Kenney.
That victim was identified as Claudette Jones. She was found with multiple stab wounds inside her kitchen.
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
I’ve also shared a small collection of basic reflective questions in the past that could be used as a tweet or other social media post.
Now, for an updated post, I’ve collected many of these questions into a single post that you can sift through and hopefully find something you can use in your classroom tomorrow. Some are questions while others are question stems that can be used to guide reflection in specific lessons or scenarios where unique language or ideas are needed.
1. What do you remember about what you learned today? Write down as many things as you can in 30/60/90 seconds.
2. Of what you remember, what seemed to be the most important ideas? Write down 3-5 things in bullet-point format.
3. What was your role in the learning process today? Did you find any new information? Interpret it? Attempt to ‘remember’ it? Complete a task? Listen? Watch? Skim? Try? Combine? Consider? Evaluate? Calculate? List? Describe? Problem solve? Recall? Create?
4. Were you an active or a passive learner? Did the learning activity allow (or force) you to be one or the other (active versus passive)?
5. What did you notice others doing during today’s lesson? Include other students, the teacher, etc. Infer cognitive behaviors (what they were doing ‘in their minds’) and listing physical and observable behaviors.
Metacognitive Questions For Learning
6. When were you at your best today?
7. What opportunities did you have today? Which were worthy of your attention, energy, or best thinking? Did you take them?
8. What did you assume about today’s learning before we started? How did that affect your learning (for better or for worse)?
9. What was your mindset before, during, and after the lesson?
10. What are you sure you understand about _____?
11. What do you think you might understand about _____?
12. What are you sure you misunderstand about _____? What is the most likely source of the confusion?
Nature Of Knowledge Reflective Questions
13. What do you suspect that you might misunderstand about ____?
14. What is the difference between misunderstanding and not yet knowing?
15. What do you already know that you can use to think about or learn _____?
16. How do you know that you understand _____?
17. How do you know that you don’t understand ______?
18. How did you respond when struggled with today (if you did)?
19. What did you find most surprising about _____?
20. How did your understanding of _______ change today?
21. Of what you learned, how much of it was new, and how much of it have you seen before?
22. What about _____ makes you curious?
23. How is ____ similar to _____?
24. How does what you learned relate to what you already knew?
25. So? So What? What now? (Summarize what you learned, roughly explain its significance, and estimate what you might/could/should do next in response.)
Bonus: Consider the ‘form’ of learning you used. What other forms could have been used and what would effect might the use of those other forms have had on your learning? Think of sitting and listening versus standing and speaking. Think working alone versus working with others or watching a video versus reading a book versus listening to a podcast. How might the nature of what you learn (the topic or skill or concept being learned) dictate the ideal learning form?
Put another way, how does the learning content and/or goal affect the best learning methods?
What did I clearly learn? What might I have learned or practiced or improved my understanding of that may not be obvious?
What was most interesting? Least? How can I learn new things if I’m not ‘interested in’ what I’m learning? What do others do in these cases to learn?
What was clear, what was confusing, and what was somewhere in the middle? What do I still need help with? Who can I talk to about the lesson to review key ideas or clarify misunderstandings?
2. What seems most important about what was learned?
What seems less important and what seems more important about what was learned? Or is this something where what was learned doesn’t have a clear hierarchy?
After the lesson, is what seems most important different from how things seemed before and during the lesson? How and why?
3. What should I do with what I’ve learned and how should I respond to what I didn’t learn?
What should I do with what I learned and know? What will I be able to do with this–both now and if and when I improve my understanding of it?
Who should I ‘tell’ or share this with? Who would care and/or benefit the most?
4. What might we learn tomorrow Based on what we learned today?
Where does what we’re learning seem to be ‘heading’? What happens next when we’ve learned things like this in the past?
What could I learn about this tomorrow with help? By myself? What might someone who knows this better than I do ‘learn next’?
5. How have I been changed by what I’ve learned?
How do I feel about this content? Interested? Enthusiastic? Curious? Bored? Indifferent?
1. What is the most important concept, skill, or ‘thing’ you learned today, and why do you think it stands out to you?
2. How can you apply what you learned today to your everyday life or future studies? Provide a specific example.
3. What part of the lesson or activity did you find most challenging, and how did you overcome that challenge?
4. Describe a moment during the lesson or activity when you felt confused or unsure. How did you resolve that confusion?
5. How did today’s lesson connect to something you already knew? Did it change or enhance your understanding in any way?
6. What questions do you still have about the topic, and where might you find the answers?
7. In what ways did today’s lesson or activity help you understand a real-world issue or problem?
8. Reflect on your participation today. How did you contribute to the lesson or activity, and what could you do differently next time to improve?
9. What feedback would you give the teacher about this lesson or activity? What worked well for you, and what could be improved or make things clearer, interesting, etc.
Powerful Questions To Help Students Reflect On Their Learning
