Why Do Teachers Ask Questions They Know the Answers To?
The Future will not be multiple choice
A while back I posed 13 Subversive Questions for the Classroom. Here's the first five:
- If a question has a correct answer, is it worth asking?
- If something is "Googleable" why would we spend precious class time teaching it?
- When we ask students to summarize, do we actually want to know what's important to them?
- What do you suppose students think they are supposed to be doing when we ask them to analyze?
- Do you ever ask your students questions you don't know the answer to? Why not?
Here's a TEDxCreativeCoast video - The Future Will Not Be Multiple Choice - that answers those questions and showcases the power of a PBL / design-based approach to learning. Turn curricula into design challenges, classrooms into workshops and teach students to think like designers.
While you watch it, try to think of a meaningful career that looks like filling out a worksheet.
Studio H Classroom: Design. Build. Transform. Community
Four Keys to Teaching Students How to Analyze
Illuminating the Beauty, Humanity, Intrigue in Mathematics
Flipped My Keynote
Learning Catalytics: BYOD Managed Student Centered Learning
01/05/2013 at 7:03 pm Permalink
Because it is safer, taught in teaching courses, and requires no thinking or creativity. Teachers need to ask questions that spark thinking, innovation, twist, and challenge. The problem is that this cannot be quantified for teacher evaluation so it is forbidden and attacked by education leaders and politicians who want ant like conformity.
02/05/2013 at 5:27 am Permalink
Hi James,
Your observations, while cynical, are far too accurate.
Here’s to better days ~ Peter