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"It seems only fitting to explore the role of questions in education by asking questions about the process of doing so. I propose that we start with the customary way of framing this topic and then proceed to questions that are deeper and potentially more subversive of traditional schooling. 1. WHICH QUESTIONS? To begin, let's consider what we might ask our students. The least interesting questions are those with straightforward factual answers. That's why a number of writers have encouraged the use of questions described variously as "true" (Wolf, 1987), "essential" (Simon, 2002), "generative" (Perkins, 1992; Perrone, 1998), "guiding" (Traver, 1998), or "fertile" (Harpaz & Lefstein, 2000). What the best of these share is that they're open-ended. Sometimes, in fact, no definitive right answer can be found at all. And even when there is one - or at least when there is reason to prefer some responses to others - the answer isn't obvious and can't be summarized in a sentence. Why is it so hard to find a cure for cancer? Do numbers ever end? Why do people lie? Why did we invade Vietnam? Grappling with meaty questions like these (which were among those generated by a class in Plainview, NY) is a real project . . . literally. A question-based approach to teaching tends to shade into learning that is problem- (Delisle, 1997) and project-based (Kilpatrick, 1918; Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Wolk, 1998). Intellectual proficiency is strengthened as students figure out how to do justice to a rich question. As they investigate and come to understand important ideas more fully, new questions arise along with better ways of asking them, and the learning spirals upwards. Guiding students through this process is not a technique that can be stapled onto our existing pedagogy, nor is it something that teachers can be trained to master during an in-service day. What's required is a continual focus on creating a classroom that is about thinking rather

"Open with a question or two. Another favorite education writer of mine, the cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham, argues that teachers should focus more on the use of questions. "The material I want students to learn," he writes in his book Why Don't Students Like School?, "is actually the answer to a question. On its own, the answer is almost never interesting. But if you know the question, the answer may be quite interesting." My colleague Greg Weiner, an associate professor of political science, puts those ideas into practice. At the beginning of class, he shows four or five questions on a slide for students to consider. Class then proceeds in the usual fashion. At the end, he returns to the questions so that students can both see some potential answers and understand that they have learned something that day. What did we learn last time? A favorite activity of many instructors is to spend a few minutes at the opening of class reviewing what happened in the previous session. That makes perfect sense, and is supported by the idea that we don't learn from single exposure to material - we need to return frequently to whatever we are attempting to master.But instead of offering a capsule review to students, why not ask them to offer one back to you?Reactivate what they learned in previous courses. Plenty of excellent evidence suggests that whatever knowledge students bring into a course has a major influence on what they take away from it. So a sure-fire technique to improve student learning is to begin class by revisiting, not just what they learned in the previous session, but what they already knew about the subject matter.Write it down. All three of the previous activities would benefit from having students spend a few minutes writing down their responses. That way, every student has the opportunity to answer the question, practice memory retrieval from the previous session, or surface their prior knowledge - and not just the students most likely to

"The Minute Paper comes in many variations, but the simplest one involves wrapping up the formal class period a few minutes early and posing two questions to your students: What was the most important thing you learned today? What question still remains in your mind? Taken together, those two questions accomplish multiple objectives. The first one not only requires students to remember something from class and articulate it in their own words (more about that in a moment), but it also requires them to do some quick thinking. They have to reflect on the material and make a judgment about the main point of that day's class. The second question encourages them to probe their own minds and consider what they haven't truly understood. Most of us are infected by what learning theorists sometimes call "illusions of fluency," which means that we believe we have obtained mastery over something when we truly have not. To answer the second question, students have to decide where confusion or weaknesses remain in their own comprehension of the day's material. Closing connections. If we want students to obtain mastery and expertise in our subjects, they need to be capable of making their own connections between what they are learning and the world around them - current events, campus debates, personal experiences. The last five minutes of class represent an ideal opportunity for students to use the course material from that day and brainstorm some new connections.The metacognitive five. We have increasing evidence from the learning sciences that students engage in poor study strategies. Likewise, research shows that most people are plagued by the illusions of fluency. The solution on both fronts is better metacognition - that is, a clearer understanding of our own learning. What if all of us worked together deliberately to achieve that?Close the loop. Finally, go back to any of the strategies I introduced in my recent column on the first five minutes of clas

"The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is freeware, and you may use it for any purpose or project you like. It is not open-source. The Java version provides all the features found in the windows version, except: you can't upload to hotpotatoes.net and you can't export a SCORM object from Java Hot Potatoes. "

"The easiest way to engage your students with videos pick a video, add your magical touch and track your students' understanding Save time Take already existing videos from Youtube, Khan Academy, Crash Course, etc. or upload your own. Engage students easily Enable self-paced learning with interactive lessons, add your voice and questions along the video. Reinforce accountability Know if your students are watching your videos, how many times and see the answers they give."

"A webinar can take many forms, such as a meeting, presentation, or workshop. The main difference between running a webinar and simply posting a video is the interactive component the former offers. Attendees typically view webinars in real time, and there is often the option for them to participate by asking and/or answering questions. This type of seminar offers an excellent opportunity to add a personal touch to your platform and engage your customers. For example, Neil Patel uses webinars frequently to reach out to visitors of his traffic growing website. Step #1: Create a Google Account Step #2: Create a New Event in YouTube Live Step #3: Customize Your Webinar Step #4: Embed Your Webinar in Your WordPress Website Step #5: Invite Attendees Step #6: Broadcast Your Webinar"

"As an educator who is addicted to Twitter I have always read about students getting introduced to Twitter and wondered how it would work. After reading and reading I have finally decided to give it a go. Here is my introduction to Twitter in my classroom. Last Tuesday, the day started like any other. Roll call, discussion, introduction to an activity and a bit of a laugh with my Year 7 and 8 Technology class. We had been discussing the importance of being an active online user and being a positive digital citizen (the students are preparing some presentations for Year 2-3 children later in the term). The conversation moved into learning environments and we discussed the small and "un-student friendly" (their words) environment that they were currently sitting in. "Take the teachable moment and run with it" my inner, energetic teacher yelled from my shoulder. So there we were talking about the "Ultimate Learning Environment", when one of my students asked me "Why is social media so big?". Good question I thought, why is it 'so big'. So we unpacked that question and broke it down. We talked about Social Media and what it was and how it worked, they gave me excellent examples and we tied it back into our discussion about digital citizenship. From this point, as a class, we decided we would use social media to help us with our learning. The students had no idea how it could work. I suggested twitter and how I use it. We pulled up my profile and saw how it worked (discussion only). The decision was then made -> Let's ask the twitterverse to help us!! On rolled Monday 5th May and in our first class (I see this group twice a week) we decided that tomorrow would be the day, we would ask twitter for their advice on "What makes a GREAT learningenvironment?". The students already have some fantastic ideas and a plan of where they want to see their environment heading but they needed some depth to their plan and some other opinions outside of

"there is no live teacher engagement... Currently, just 10 percent of MOOC registrants complete their courses. Where Will MOOCs Be Just Two Years From Now? Within the next two years, MOOCs will quickly evolve from lacking teacher engagement to having a lot of teacher engagement. Right now, it's essentially a model where computers are teaching students. This model is simply not sustainable in the long run without live student-teacher engagement. Teachers are the key that unlocks learning in these courses. They help students resolve issues and problems. Will the biggest change in online education moving forward be putting live teachers at the center of the MOOC (not just on video)? We will know the answer very soon."

+ video aquí: http://www.ite.educacion.es/es/mediateca-congreso-ced/videos/952-conferencias-dia-6-auditorio-i "La pregunta circuló rápidamente por la red y llamó mi atención mientras pensaba en esta intervención. Las primeras respuestas tardaron apenas unos minutos en aparecer. En la versión estadounidense del debate predominaron las respuestas que tenían que ver con conceptos como creatividad y emprendimiento, pero también hubo algunas centradas en la necesidad de más habilidades y de desarrollar la capacidad de resolver problemas. "I wish someone told me that learning skills and getting real-world experience is infinitely more valuable than good grades. The world is looking for problem-solvers who help them push forward, not people who can regurgitate answers on a test", decía una especialmente clara. "No es tanto el qué, como el cómo", respondían rápidamente en el debate hispano. "Más que los contenidos lo que falla son las metodologías, los enfoques" continuaba ese mismo participante. "Me hubiese encantado que alguien nos hubiese enseñado a poder desenvolvernos mejor en el mundo real. Enseñar a trabajar en equipo y potenciar lo mejor de cada uno para conseguir un fin colectivo. Dejar de educar en masa para centrarse en las cualidades específicas de cada individuo. Que hubiesen quedado atrás los sistemas individualistas de educación ya que nos vuelven a todos más egoístas" aportaba varios comentarios más abajo Mireia. "Me hubiera encantado aprender a aprender y no que me enseñaran a memorizar datos que olvidaba después del examen. Aprender a tomar mis propias decisiones y a equivocarme", respondía en la misma línea Casilda."

"Today, getting what you need is as easy as a trip to the store. From food to clothing, energy, medicine, and so much more, Andy George will discover what it takes to make everything from scratch. His mission is to understand the complex processes of manufacturing that is often taken for granted and do it all himself. Each week he's traveling the world to bypass the modern supply chain in order to harvest raw materials straight from the source. Along the way, he's answering the questions you never thought to ask."

"It has me thinking about what it would mean to improve online classes. A few ideas come to mind: Use multiple platforms. I'm not against using an LMS as a central hub. However, I think it's valuable to experiment with the types of productivity tools you will actually use outside of a classroom. Use Google Docs to share ideas, create surveys, and ask questions. Use Google Hangouts to meet as a group. Go project-based. I haven't figured this out entirely with my first class but my hope is that we can go fully project-based in the same way that my face-to-face class is. In fact, the asynchronous nature of online classes actually means there is a better potential of creating a project-based culture that mirrors the way people actually work on projects. Make something together. I use a collaboration grid with co-creating and communicating on separate spectrums (x-axis) and multimedia and text on another spectrum (y-axis). This has been an effective way to think through collaborative tools that allow students to co-create. Embrace a synchronous/asynchronous blend: I love using Voxer because students can speak back and forth in the moment. However, if they miss it, they can listen to it later. The same is true of using a Google Hangouts On Air. Make it more connective. We tend to treat online instruction as if it is a linear process and we don't do enough to link things back and forth and connect ideas, resources, discussions and content creation in a seamless, back-and-forth nature. Incorporate multimedia. It's a simple idea, but I create a short video at the beginning of each week and I encourage students to create video and audio as well. This has a way of making things more concrete. There's something deeply human about hearing an actual human voice. I know, crazy, right? Go mobile. I don't simply mean use a smart phone. I mean assign some things that allow students to get out in the world and create videos, snap pictures, or simpl

"This book is a collection of homework problems for use in an introductory physics course. It is a work in progress, currently complete through mechanics and electromagnetism. There is a complete set of ancillary materials, including solutions and an online answer checker. If you're an instructor, you can use these problems as a plug-in replacement for the ones in a commercial textbook, thus insulating yourself from common hassles associated with using the problems from a commercial text. For example, you can change books without having to redo all your problem sets, or you can tell your students that they can use any edition of a particular text."

"In 1973, near the height of the 'population bomb' panic, a computing programme called World1 offered up some predictions for the future. It anticipated a grim picture for humanity based on current trajectories. Tracing categories such as population, pollution and natural-resource usage, World1 calculated that, by 2040, human civilisation would collapse - a century after the best year to have been alive on the planet: 1940. This film was originally broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News as part of a report on predictions for the coming decades made by cutting-edge computing technology and leading thinkers of the time. The second segment features interviews with members of the Club of Rome, an elite think tank composed of government officials, academics and business leaders focused on the future of humanity. Their view is a bit sunnier, anticipating a world where global governments are forced to cooperate to solve complex problems, people widen their cultural horizons and work fewer hours, and limited consumption - not wealth - becomes a mark of prestige. Viewed today, it makes for an engrossing artifact, raising far more questions than it answers about humanity's ability to effectively predict its future and correct its course."

"Engage viewers by integrating quizzes, polls, and CTAs into videos Insert multiple choice quizzes, polls, and short answer questions into your videos with a ground-breaking new interface."

"CoRubrics, an add-on for Google Sheets helps teachers in the assessment process. It is used to assess students (or groups of students) with a rubric designed by the teacher and also allows students to assess other students (coevaluation). CoRubrics automates the entire process. First, teachers design the rubric they want to use in Google Sheets, then they add the students' names and their email address. (These can be imported from Google Classroom). Once this is done, the add-on will: Create a Google Form with the contents of the rubric. Send the form to the students by email or simply provide the link to the teacher. Process the data once the form is filled out (by the students or by the teacher). Finally, send the results to the students (each student receives only their results) with a personalized comment. In addition, CoRubrics allows: Insert comments when answered. Allow Co-evaluation, self-assessment and teacher assessment with one link."

¿Por qué los niños preguntan por qué? Qué hace a una buena explicación (artículo en inglés)

The Smithsonian has a series of one-minute "Ask Smithsonian" videos that answer questions on a variety of topics. Ideal for Social Studies classes.

"Hace unos años hice la siguiente pregunta en un examen: ¿Qué tipo de estructura tiene este texto? La respuesta de un alumno fue la siguiente: Sí Os podéis imaginar la cara que se me quedó al leer la respuesta. Aún así, nunca le podré agradecer lo suficiente a este alumno que me respondiera a una pregunta abierta con un sí, porque esa pregunta me hizo reflexionar sobre el porqué de una respuesta sin sentido. Soy consciente de que es una respuesta de entre cientos y cientos que lees a lo largo de los cursos, pero esta respuesta me ayudó a darme cuenta de que enseñar significa enseñarlo todo. Muchas veces se dan por sabidos aspectos que los alumnos no tienen en absoluto asimilados y creo que es nuestro deber como docentes ayudar a nuestros alumnos a que aprendan todo aquello que seamos capaces de enseñarles. Así que pensé en una manera para que los alumnos respondieran de una forma mecanizada las respuestas, es decir, de lo que se trata es de que tus alumnos mecanicen estructuras de respuestas que les sirvan para cualquier tema de cualquier asignatura. Sé que puede resultar algo ambicioso, pero te aseguro que trabajado debidamente y de forma coordinada funciona. ¿Cómo se enseña a mecanizar una respuesta? Para que entienda a qué me refiero con mecanizar una respuesta, déjame que te lo enseñe a partir de un texto expositivo. Personalmente, cuando se trata de conectar un contenido teórico con un texto relacionado con ese contenido, en muchas ocasiones observas lo difícil que resulta para la gran mayoría de tus alumnos aunar en una misma respuesta contenido y texto. Es por ello que se me ocurrió establecer unos patrones de respuestas. Para que se entienda mejor, voy a ponerte el siguiente texto expositivo sobre la capa de ozono y luego trabajaré las respuesta con dicho texto: Alumnos Previamente a este texto expositivo se ha enseñado en el aula qué se extiende por la modalidad discursiva de la exposición, el tipo de tema y