This weeks Food for Thought arises from a mini survey that I heard about that had taken place through ToK classes and involved student questioning. The Grade 11 students were asked to note the questions they asked in classes. In their feedback session two weeks later only one question had been asked that was not about clarifying information. Now, I might have the statistics wrong but even if the number of questions is less than 10 this would point to lack of curiosity, deep thinking and possibly engagement in their learning. I know that several teachers have expressed concern about our students lack of ability, as they grow older, to ask questions that reflect curiosity and deep thinking. Perhaps that is because they are not truly engaged with their learning.
This video is approximately 10 minutes and encourages us all to cultivate curiosity as the "seeds of real learning," in the way we teach and engage our students. The theme of encouraging inquiry through active, blended learning is certainly one that should resonate with all of us at ISHCMC.
This article reinforces the importance of questioning for students
Why It’s Imperative to Teach Students How to Question as the Ultimate Survival Skill
"Friday March 14 is the 135th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s birthday, a good time to think about the importance of asking questions. This was a big theme for Einstein, who told us, “The important thing is not to stop questioning,” while also urging us to question everything and “Never lose a holy curiosity.”
Einstein understood that questioning is critical to learning and solving problems. If he were alive today, Einstein would see a world in which questioning has become more important than ever before. But he might also be left wondering why, for the most part, we still don’t encourage questioning or teach it to our children.
Let’s start with the growing importance of questioning. Perhaps the best evidence of this can be seen in today’s high-tech world. The leaders of Facebook, Amazon, Google, and a number of other leading companies are known as consummate questioners who constantly ask, Why should we settle for this? and What if we try something different? A number of the top executives in Silicon Valley were educated in Montessori schools, where their curiosity was given room to roam at a young age.
This has served them well in today’s dynamic tech market—because their well-honed questioning skills help them analyze and solve problems, adapt to change, identify fresh opportunities, and lead companies in new directions. Indeed, asking the right question is often the starting point of innovation. In writing my book, A More Beautiful Question, I traced the origins of many breakthrough inventions and “disruptive” business start-ups—everything from the making of the cell phone to the birth of the internet, along with the launches of the companies Netflix, Nest, and Dropbox—and found that each began with a person pursuing an insightful question no one else was asking at the time. The questions led to answers that, eventually, have led to billion-dollar paydays. It has been said that, in Silicon Valley today, “questions are the new answers.”
If anything, the ability to ask insightful questions will be even more critical tomorrow than it is today. As change continues to accelerate, tomorrow’s leaders—and the larger workforce—will have to keep learning, updating and adapting what they know, inventing and re-inventing their own jobs and careers through constant, ongoing inquiry."
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/03/why-its-imperative-to-teach-students-how-to-question-as-the-ultimate-survival-skill/
Here is an interesting site about questioning with a list of blog posts and discussion forums for those who want to go deeper. http://rightquestion.org/
Tuesday's meeting will be in the MPR. The subject has had to change to reflect Cognita's quality assurance expectations and hence we will be looking at the Cognita Evaluation Cycle and how that fits with our professional growth model.
Have a good weekend,
Yours
Adrian
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