Questioning is an effective way to activate schema when beginning a new lesson. It allows students to have time to think about what they will be learning, before being thrown into it. I do think however, that teachers should question the way they ask questions, to ensure that our students are getting the most out of the strategy. “Yes or no” questions should be kept to a minimum. Not much thought must be generated to just say yes or no, and we want to teach students how to think.
Since students are not used to responding to quality questions, teachers must give them a guide. If students can remember the three basic topics of rhetorical styles, Logos, Ethos, and Pathos, then they will be better equipped to self-monitor. This point is crucial, because we must get our struggling readers to a more independent level, so that they can progress.
I did not realize that ole Bloom was responsible for “HOT” questions, but I learn something new every day. Anyway, I think that teachers should use the HOT method every single day. Start out a basic level, and each day, progress and go deeper into the subject, each day asking more thought-provoking questions. You don’t get this type of teaching from worksheets every day. These types of lessons must be really thought-out and planned by the teacher first. But I love the way these HOT questions teach and train children to have their own opinion and own thoughts. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? These questions force students to show that they comprehend the material, are able to apply the material to real life, and even create their own ideas about the topic. I really don’t understand why this is something that we learn about at USM, but never see it actually being done….
About class Tuesday: I adored the video we watched on TED. That truly takes his job seriously. He carried such an air of excellence that I want to have. It really made sense to me to use real life objects. We have the technology, so why not make it more relevant to our students? The clip art is only a picture of something, but we can use the real thing to bring things to life.
I think that the strategy that I will use the most is the QtA strategy, which beckons students to interact with the author of a text. I love what the book said about helping students to take the ideas off of the page and relate them to their world. Is that not what it is all about? After the reading, comes a grand discussion, where more questions are raised, and more concepts built. This is what I call talking about learning. In this strategy, the teacher is a facilitator or guide, not the main one doing the lecturing. This is how you know that real learning is going on, because students are questioning, talking, and bouncing ideas off of one another. I think that if this type of strategy were to happen in a typical classroom, the teacher would freak out and the students not know what to do. They are so accustomed to listening to the teacher, and then giving the information right back to the teacher, without ever being accountable for thinking or analyzing.
I like the ReQuest strategy, I am just imagining students thinking of short, simple questions to ask their partners just to get finished with the assignment. How do we get students to think when they do not want to think? I think that I would wait to use ReQuest until I got students more accustomed being critical thinkers. Right now, students are just so used to being told what to think and remember that many of them will have to be trained to think.
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