Developing More Curious Minds
Questioning and Inquiry Across
the Curriculum
Mary Schmidt, Gifted Education Consultant
Heartland AEA
270.0405 or 800.255.0405 ext. 14375
mschmidt@aea11.k12.ia.us
Class Format
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Wiki
EtherPad
Diigo
Google docs
Introductions
• Visit Diigo and add your introduction to the
Introductions discussion
• Name
• School & teaching assignment
• Why you’re here
• One thing you’re curious about
KUD
Know
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Characteristics of a culture of curiosity
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
Questioning models
Ways to apply Web 2.0 tools in the
classroom
KUD
Understand
• Curiosity is an asset to be valued and
nourished.
• Students’ natural curiosity serves as a
basis for enduring learning.
• Building a culture of inquisitiveness is
essential to student success.
KUD
Do
• Identify your own curiosities
• Employ Web 2.0 tools in the pursuit of
questions and answers
• Embed characteristics of a culture of
curiosity in your classroom
• Remodel lesson/unit to better engage
curiosity, risk-taking, and H.O.T.
The Goals of
Education
What should 21st Century graduates know,
understand, and be able to do?
– Brainstorm individually
– Discuss at your table
– Share using EtherPad
– What do you notice about this list?
– What questions does this information raise for
you?
The Goals of
Education
• I want students to
– Be lifelong learners
– Be passionate
– Be ready to take risks
– Be able to problem solve and think critically
– Be able to look at things differently
– Be able to work independently and with others
– Be creative
• I want students to
The Goals of
Education
– Care and want to give back to the community
– Persevere
– Have integrity and self-respect
– Have moral courage
– Be able to use the world around them
– Speak well, write well, read well, and work
well with others
– Enjoy their life and their work
Dennis Litkey, The Big Picture, p. 1
Goals of Education
1. To acquire knowledge (K)
2. To understand knowledge (U)
3. To use or apply knowledge (D)
--Perkins, 1992
Your Goals
• Partner
• EtherPad
– Discuss
– Contribute
A Culture of Curiosity
• How would you define/describe culture,
school culture, and culture of curiosity?
• What elements of a school’s culture are
barriers to a culture of curiosity?
• What elements promote a culture of
curiosity?
Deep Structures of Schooling…
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Teacher as teller
Student as absorber
Curriculum as coverage
Kids as dependent and incapable
Lessons loosely linked to curriculum
Pedagogy as a bag of tricks
Assessment
Control = management
Fair = treating all students alike
Grades as normative
Tomlinson
Schools of Inquiry
“You know this
Theory of
Relativity
business…I’ve got
questions!”
James, age 16
Ways to communicate our
valuing of curiosity
What you do speaks so
loudly I cannot hear what
you say.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
I wonder…
…if global warming is for real.
…how we will ever know.
…how electronic ink technology works.
…what qualifies a person to work in the
office of a U.S. Senator or Congressman.
…what all of you wonder about
I Wonder…
Could Jurassic Park
Happen?
How big is the universe?
How has farming changed?
Creativity
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What is creativity?
Who is creative?
How does one get that way?
In what ways do schools encourage
creativity?
• What is the place of creativity in the
classroom? (In theory and in reality)
Cognitive Principle 1
• People are naturally curious, but we are
not naturally good thinkers; unless the
cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid
thinking.
Implication:
Teachers need to reconsider how they
encourage students to think.
CASTLE
--Willingham, 2009
Successful Thinking
Depends on…
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Information from the environment
Facts in long-term memory
Procedures in long-term memory
The amount of space in working memory
--Willingham, p. 14
Inquiry…
• Begins in doubt, a situation that
– is ambiguous
– presents a dilemma
– proposes alternatives
• Problems are states of doubt or
uncertainty
--Dewey, 1933
Essential Features of Inquiry
Learners
• are engaged by a question
• give priority to evidence
• formulate explanations based on evidence
• evaluate explanations against current
understanding
• communicate to justify explanations
--Iowa Department of Education presentation,
2008
Children grow into the
intellectual life around them.
--Vygotsky
Why do we hesitate to ask
questions?
Asking Questions
“Good” Questions
“So, Izzy, did you ask a good
question today?”
Isidor Rabi’s mother
The single most important question
I have ever asked is also the
shortest…
WHY?
--Larry King
On a Sticky
Note…
• Jot down two of the best questions you’ve
asked your students. Focus on a particular
lesson or unit.
• Set aside.
Bloom’s levels?
1. What makes a question “good”? EP
2. Why is it important for teachers and students to
ask good questions? EP
3. What are the consequences when they don’t? EP
4. What would you see and hear in a classroom
where higher-order questioning is occurring? EP
5. What would happen to student learning if teachers
and students asked effective higher-order
questions? EP
6. What questions do you have about effective
questioning? EP
Revisit the
Questions
• Based on the characteristics of a “good”
question and Bloom’s Taxonomy,
determine if you asked good, higher-order
questions.
• Using these questions as a basis, create a
better version of each.
• Share your work with a partner.
Three-Story Intellect
• Applying
• Processing
• Gathering
Wiki
p. 64 & 67
The Content of Our Questions
Learning to think is more important
than thinking.
The Content of Our Questions
Questions based on key concepts (p.71)
What are the major ideas worth thinking
about in your subject area?
If you had only one week to teach a yearlong course, what concepts, ideas, or ways
of knowing would be essential to
understanding your discipline?
Questions of a Discipline
How does the professional think through
complex, strange phenomena in her
subject? What are her ways of inquiring?
What are the essential questions in your
own subject area, ones you want students to
be able to ask so they can understand
complex problematic situations?
Metacognition Questions
“A good thinker is
a person whose
mind watches
itself.”
--Albert Camus
Reflection
• In what ways do classroom and school
structures encourage “good” questions?
• In what ways do classroom and school
structures impede “good” questions?
Questioning Text
Questioning Text
Questioning Text:
The WWW
An Intelligent Revolution
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Critical Thinking
Where’s the Data?
Questioning the Status Quo
Why Do You Have Such Crazy Ideas?
How Do You Know?
An Intelligent Revolution
Critical thinking is skillful, fully responsible
thinking that facilitates [making] judgments,
because it (1) relies upon criteria, (2) is selfcorrecting, and (3) is sensitive to context…
--Lipman, 1988
People learn best when what
they learn is personally
meaningful to them and they
can learn in their own way,
have choices, and feel in
control.
“Powerful Learning”
--Ron Brandt
Writing Our Curiosities
• Before Writing
– The Cemetery Path
– The Dinner Party
• Problem Solving
• Field Notes
– Preparing for Field Trips
• Reflection
Field Trips
Purpose:
• To apply inquiry to experience
• To experience a structure that will facilitate
more effective field trip outcomes in your
setting
• Choose a field trip
Field Trips
– Science Center of Iowa
– State Historical Building
– State Capitol
– Botanical Center
– Blank Park Zoo
– Art Center
• What questions do you have about the
venue?
• Find the Web site and gather information.
Field Trips
• Fill out the “Before Your Visit” section of
Figure 10.1 (p. 172)
• Take the field trip
– Leave Heartland at 10:00 a.m.
– Return by 1:30
– Fill out the “During Visit” section of Fig. 10.1
Field Trips
• Be sure to grab lunch while you’re out.
• At 1:30 we’ll reconvene to discuss the
experience.
• Be sure to bring your field notes to share.
• How can you apply this process to make
field trips more meaningful for kids?
Field Trips
• What did you learn…
– About the place you visited?
– In response to the questions you generated?
– About applying this process to field trip
opportunities for your students?
• What additional questions did you
discover?
Characteristics of
Effective Instruction
• Form triads and discuss
– What each of the characteristics involves
– How it relates to other characteristics
– Connections to this class
The Kind of Schools We Need…
…would not hold as an ideal that all
students get to the same destination at the
same time.
…would take seriously the idea that a child’s
personal signature, his or her distinctive way
of learning is something to be preserved and
developed.
The Kind of Schools We Need…
…would help students gradually assume
increased responsibility for framing their own
goals and learning how to achieve them…to
become architects of their own education.
…would recognize that the most important
forms of learning are those that students know
how to use outside of school…the transfer of
learning cannot be assumed; it needs to be
taught.
The Kind of Schools We Need…
…would take seriously that with regarding
to learning, the joy is in the journey.
--Eisner, 2002
This Bridge
This bridge will only take you
halfway there
To those mysterious lands you
long to see…
--Shel Silverstein
For October
• Apply your learning to create a culture of
curiosity in your classroom.
• Work on the course requirements
• Come ready to share your experiences.
• Live a more curiosity-inspired life.