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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

"1. Blogging enables reflection. This is true for both students and educators. Too often do we go through our days, class to class, with minimal opportunities for reflection on our experiences or the information that we have acquired along the way. Blogging offers the opportunity to take a step back and connect with our learning and place it in the context of the bigger picture. Make reflection an assignment or part of another assignment - it is an important component to learning. For students: This is not the easiest thing to accomplish - blogging takes time and that is a finite resource during a busy class period. There is great opportunity in academic support periods or advisory classes for students (particularly in 1:1 schools) to blog. Many advisory classes take place throughout the day, which is a great break point for students to create based on their learning from that day. For teachers: This type of reflection can and should be compiled into your lesson planning for future lessons. Take what you learned from teaching and learning that day and incorporate it into the next day's lessons. Find time to do this during a conference period during your day or right after school. Yes, it is tough to get in the habit of doing a new thing - but once you start using reflection through blogging, I think that your lesson planning will be easier and much more meaningful. 2. Develop an Authentic Audience An authentic audience is a great way to increase rigor and in all of my experiences has led to increased performance by students. Authentic audiences in blogging could mean any number of things - family members, students from other classes, students from other buildings, other teachers, individuals interested in the content from around the world, etc. A student knowing that their work may be seen by people other than what they consider their 'typical audience' (read: teacher) typically spends more time and exerts more effort to creating a quality p

"... In addition to serving as a great explanatory example of the potential danger of AI, I have realized that paperclip maximizer is also a perfect allegory for capitalism. Where the artificial intelligence sought to maximize paperclips, the capital maximizer seeks to maximize capital. ... While this story of the capital maximizer might strike some as the anti-capitalist rantings of socialist idealism, it is not meant as such. Capitalism is the most powerful machine that humans have ever created. It can realize the benefits of technological progress and leverage them to improving the human condition better than any other economic system yet devised. The problem is in viewing the growth of capital as an ends and not a means. If we do not demand that our systems maximize the well-being of humans and the environment which sustains us, then all is lost."

"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."

"¿Sabría usted reconocer una trampa del progreso si la tuviese delante de los ojos? "Si progresar, de acuerdo con el diccionario, es hacer adelantamientos en una materia, lo procedente es analizar si estos adelantamientos en una materia implican un retroceso en otras y valorar en qué medida lo que se avanza justifica lo que se sacrifica."No nos hallamos dentro de un "mundo-máquina", una suerte de laboratorio/ fábrica gigantesco donde todo parece predecible y controlable, sino en una biosfera intrincadamente compleja, con redes de causa-efecto a veces inescrutables, con sorpresas sistémicas, efectos de umbral, irreversibilidades y sinergias múltiples."No sé los horrores que nos aguardan" -escribía Bertrand Russell en 1961- "pero nadie puede dudar de que, a menos que se haga algo radical, el hombre de la era científica está sentenciado. En el mundo en que vivimos existe un activo y dominante deseo de muerte que, hasta ahora, en todas las crisis, ha podido más que la cordura. Si hemos de sobrevivir, tal estado de cosas no debe continuar" (¿Tiene el hombre un futuro?, Aguilar, Madrid 1962)."Las dos formas en que la humanidad puede autodestruirse -la guerra civil a escala mundial o la devastación del medio ambiente- están convergiendo rápidamente" Si hoy la prolongación del desarrollo lleva al colapso ecológico-social, progreso sería ganar cierto control sobre el vehículo embalado para ser capaces de detenernos. Momento de parar, proclamaba el artista canario César Manrique en su manifiesto de 1985; Parar en seco, insiste dramáticamente el escritor colombiano William Ospina en 2017 (Navona Editorial, Barcelona). Frenar o al menos ralentizar para variar el rumbo -porque prolongar la trayectoria actual nos precipita al abismo. ¿Está a nuestro alcance el recurso al freno de emergencia?¿Qué puede significar progreso hoy, habida cuenta de los fenómenos de retroprogreso y contraproductividad que antes analizamos someramente?