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"The Question Game: A Playful Way To Teach Critical Thinking Big idea: Teaching kids to ask smart questions on their own A four-year-old asks on average about 400 questions per day, and an adult hardly asks any. Our school system is structured around rewards for regurgitating the right answer, and not asking smart questions - in fact, it discourages asking questions. With the result that as we grow older, we stop asking questions. Yet asking good questions is essential to find and develop solutions, and an important skill in innovation, strategy, and leadership. So why do we stop asking questions - and more importantly, why don't we train each other, and our future leaders, to ask the right questions starting from early on? In A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas, Warren Berger suggests that there are three main questions which help in problem solving: Why questions, What If questions, and How questions."

"Twelve years after landing my first teaching job, I was invited to interview for a position in a nearby school. Job interviews had been in my rearview mirror for so long that I wasn't sure what to expect. But it didn't matter; I had a job already, and this changed my perspective completely on this one. I decided that I was going to ask the interviewers a few questions of my own. Principals routinely end job interviews by asking candidates if they have any questions. Most teachers struggle with this. Many will simply say, No, or ask when they can expect a decision. Some ask questions they believe will be endearing; things like, "Are there committees I can join?" or "Can I get into my room early?" I realized in the last job interview I ever had that my questions were the most important ones, and the last thing I was concerned with was sucking up to the principals. After all, in a way, I was interviewing them. Walking back to my car that day, I knew I wouldn't take the job if they offered it to me, because they struggled to answer the questions I asked to my satisfaction."

"It's a query that can give an ill-prepared job seeker pause: So, do you have any questions for me? Interviewers will judge you by your questions. Almost all employers wrap up job interviews by turning the tables and offering candidates an opportunity to showcase how well they understand the role, how interested they are in the opportunity and what plays to their passions points. When the time comes to flip roles and grill your interviewer about the potential job, it can be tempting to ask pressing questions about salaries, hours and workload. But asking questions about vacation time, salary reviews and benefits might be red flags - and worst-case scenario, they might cost you the job. When asking your interviewer questions regarding compensation or scheduling, there's an imminent risk of being perceived as self-serving. Questions that are more focused on achieving results, helping the company grow and showing how well you've researched the role are the most wow-inducing. The goal is to end with a bang and leave a solid impression. We asked managers what they actually want to hear candidates ask during an interview. Below are a few of their responses."

"Anyone who has been to any of my presentations in the past couple of years knows that I'm passionate about teaching search skills. Not only search skills, but how search can and is truly changing our world. Search has the possibility to change our classrooms tomorrow because we can ask interesting questions that we never could ask before. If you are asking your students the same questions today that you asked before Google, it's time to updated your questions. Things have changed….the world has changed and questions and information are the main reason why. I consider Dan Russell from Google the father of search today. This guy understands how our world is changing because we can ask questions we never could before. In this TEDx Talk Dan talks not only about how search is changing our world but more importantly the reading strategies we need to be teaching today to our students around how to read digital information. Dan, through research of his own, goes on to show that only 51% of educators know the digital information reading strategy of "Find". That's just one strategy! There are others he talks about in this video. If nothing else this video has fueled my passion even more on why every teacher needs to know and understand this new digital world of information."

"As I work with aspiring administrators, I often am asked about potential interview questions that might be asked during the hiring process.   I offer a list of typical-and not so typical-interview questions that might be asked by panels who are considering school leader candidates.  Of course, a hiring decision often boils down to the right fit, so questions can vary wildly depending on the needs of a particular school or the district.  While this is not by any means a complete list, it does encompass a few examples of what kind of questions might be asked.   As they say, there is no "right answer," so I have tried to include a bit of rationale of what the panel might be thinking as well as a possible approach one might take.  "Fit" is also an important consideration for the candidate; remember, you are interviewing them as well (though it may not feel like it!) and need to be sure that you are prepared for-and aware of-the specific leadership role that is involved."

"Learning how to ask good questions is a cornerstone of learning and living. It's a practice we use every day. So much of our success in life depends on asking the right questions. So how do we actually do it? It's easy when you have a solid process. When we ask good questions in education, the benefits are immeasurable. It lets us clearly define problems and expectations. Students' research becomes more productive. They have better team communication. It lets them view challenges proactively. It encourages deeper reflection and better learning processes."

As children, we ask "Why?" a lot. It is a part of childhood, that special time when the many forces acting upon our cognitive development converge around a singular desire to ask "Why". It becomes the central focus of our conversational style, an incessant exclamation into the void which tests the patience of any nearby adult. But asking "Why" offers so much more.

"Part of what makes games great is how subjective our enjoyment of them can be. The best games unravel in different ways for different people; we play them differently and in different contexts, changing what they mean to us. Unfortunately, when we evaluate games for the classroom we often don't consider how mutable they are. We see them as either containing a certain amount of educational content or not. Some games fit into this model, sure. But for games that are more akin to, say, modeling clay than quizzes -- the learning value is up for grabs; they need people to give them shape and context. On its face, Geoguessr -- a geography guessing game that tosses players into random parts of the world (using Google's Street View) -- doesn't seem to have much traditional educational value. There's not much to be memorized and used on a typical geography test. Players guess where they are rather than know it, and guessing is bad, right? Not quite. Because what Geoguessr gets kids to do is think about what the essence of geography is. It asks the player to consider "place" in every sense, not just from the perspective of a geographer. It asks the player to think like an anthropologist, a scientist, indeed - a detective. In fact, it's one of my go-to examples of "21st century literacy," that notoriously murky way of looking at the world that's tough to understand, let alone teach."

"Children are quick to ask "why?" and "how?" when it comes to new things, but research suggests elementary and preschool students learn more when teachers (and, presumably, parents) turn the questions back on them, writes Sarah Sparks in Education Week. Sparks reports on a symposium at the annual Association for Psychological Science research meeting held late last month, where panelists discussed how and when asking students for explanations can best enhance their learning:"

"Siri is the name of Apple's personal digital assistant. It's basically voice control that talks back to you, that understands relationships and context, and with a personality straight out of Pixar. Ask Siri questions, or ask Siri to do things for you, just like you would ask a real assistant, and Siri will help keep you connected, informed, in the right place, and on time. You can even use Siri's built in dictation feature to enter text almost everywhere by simply using your voice."

"Something we've become known for is our focus on thought, inquiry, and understanding, and questions are a big part of that. We've done questions that students should ask, parents should ask, students should and shouldn't answer, questions that promote and stifle inquiry, question that reveal self-knowledge and wisdom, and more. If the ultimate goal of education is for students to be able to effectively answer questions, then focusing on content and response strategies makes sense. If the ultimate goal of education is to teach students to think, then focusing on how we can help students ask better questions themselves might make sense, no?"

"As social media has evolved it has crept into academic work. I've even given research assignments in which I've asked my students to seek out and cite quotes from people on Twitter. More and more I'm asked, "how do I cite a Tweet?" In fact, I was asked this in an email last night. If you're citing for a blog post, you can just embed the Tweet. If you're citing for a more formal work you will want to follow guidelines of MLA, APA, or Chicago Style."

"We've compiled 12 questions that you should ask yourself if you want to discover the things that will make you - personally - successful. You may think it sounds silly to ask yourself questions that you (in theory) already know the answers to, but it is helpful to frame these thoughts in a targeted way to get you thinking about them. "

"I sometimes learn more about my own practice in the classroom from the questions I am asked than I do from my own reflection. There is something about the lenses through which others see our work that helps us to see ourselves more clearly.  That was the case earlier this month at the Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston. At the end of the first day of a two-day session I was leading on Building Learning Communities in elementary classrooms, I asked the participants what they specifically wanted to talk about on the second day. One of the attendees asked me to address the way I introduce the idea of digital citizenship in my classroom. What a great question! Unfortunately, I didn't have a great answer. I did though, have the evening to think about my response."

"When we ask kids to read Chapter 3, we're telling them what to know. When we fill our boards with objectives that say "You will learn ____," we're explaining to them the very basis for the lesson we are delivering. When we give out a packet of worksheets that have fill in the blank answers, multiple choice, and matching, we're telling kids to choose answers from our choices. When we ask kids to spend days and weeks in silent classrooms answering test questions, we're telling them that knowing stuff is more important than their voice. But when we ask kids to design?"

We are driven by curiosity. It is an innately human quality that has driven us to explore, ask questions, investigate, wonder why and search for a deeper understanding. In a very fundamental way curiosity is the driver of all self-directed learning. It is our desire to find out more, unlock new knowledge and answer our questions (big ones and little ones) that compels us to learn. Sir Ken Robinson famously and provocatively asked "Do Schools Kill Creativity?". The same question might be asked about curiosity.

We ask lots of questions as we plan for our student's learning. Some of the questions we ask are about where they are with their learning. But perhaps we miss one important question along the way. Maybe we should be asking questions about how our students will apply what they learn? 

"So I asked our writers to share some of their favorite conversation starters with their kids. These are especially great after a long school day when your babies don't want to chat."

How to Ensure that Making Leads to Learning http://t.co/jqjmk9NJlo #makered