Strategy Response 3: Mosaic of Thought, and Strategies That Work

“Questions reveal far more about children’s thinking than do pat answers, hastily delivered. Questions slow us down and help us focus on what is truly important” (Keen and Zimmerman, 135).

I am working with a student right now who has been struggling with the arts appreciation course. She has a test Thursday and says she is “good” and doesn’t need any help. However, when I ask her what the test is going to be on she replies, “I don’t know, the teacher hasn’t gone over anything really”. I assured her that the teacher definitely thinks they have gone over something in class or she wouldn’t be having a test. I am finding some unique challenges in working with this student that the reading hit upon this week. How do I help her generate questions? The teacher made fun of her at the beginning of the semester and she has since checked out. She isn’t curious about the class, and she isn’t sure if she can trust me enough to admit she is struggling with the material. She needs the same sort of support that Char’s first graders did, but a different approach. How do I get her curious, or motivate, or even just over how much she doesn’t like her professor so that she can get through the course? Most importantly, how do I help her ask her own questions while she is reading about the art?

“Authentic questions, whether asked b y students or teachers,
• prompt thinking
• don’t always have one right answer
• may have many answers
• cause us to ponder and wonder
• dispel or clarify confusion
• challenge us to rethink our opinions
• lead us to seek out further information
• are subject to discussion debate and conversation
• may require further research” (Harvey and Goudvis, 124)

Harvey and Goudvis are challenging educators to move beyond teaching for rote memorization and to start to ask students to think. As I was reading this I started to think that even if teachers were just asking “Why do you think that?” after a student gave an answer we would be encouraging more critical thinking. If they are thinking about their answer, and in addition about support for their answer they are thinking more metacognitively, and there is more potential for discussion as classmates as they evaluate the rationale behind their own answers. I appreciated how focused this chapter was on questions instead of answers, especially the section talking about authenticity. I see authentic questions as a way to bring instruction back to being about the individual students in your class a great way to offset the standardized focus of so many things that happen in schools.