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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

"As a learning strategy, inquiry-based learning is all about learners constructing their own understanding and knowledge through asking questions. Unlike traditional learning methods that focus primarily on drills, memorization and rote learning, inquiry-based learning is essentially student-centered. It starts with posing questions and directly involves students in challenging hands-on activities that drive students to ask more questions and explore different learning paths. In today's post, we have assembled a collection of some useful web tools and apps that support the ethos of inquiry-based learning. Using these tools will enable students to engage in a wide range of learning tasks that are all driven by a sense of inquiry and questioning."

1) the ways they currently implement Twitter in their teaching and learning, 2) ideas for future development of Twitter-based assignments and pedagogical practices, and 3) issues concerning the integration of Twitter and other digital media into both traditional and non-traditional pedagogies. Collaborators should feel free to add material to these pages, to comment on existing material, and to share links to relevant external readings and resources. It may be helpful to tag your contributions with your Twitter handle. Collaborators are asked to please respect this space as a forum for open and respectful dialogue and networking. Let's fill up the pages below with great ideas!  Share the ways you currently implement Twitter in your teaching and learning: Students in my course New Information Technologies do an "Internet Censorship" project, focused on a specific country. I ask them to follow a journalist who tweets on that country as part of their research to understand the state of Internet freedom in the country they select. -- Lora Since shortly after Twitter was launched, I've experimented with various iterations of "The Twitter Essay," an assignment that has students considering the nature of the "essay" as a medium and how they might do that work within the space of 140 characters. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) In my fully online classes, I've started using Twitter to replace the discussion forum as the central location for student interaction. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) Show Tweets that have gotten people arrested and prompt discussion on whether it is fair that anyone be arrested for any Tweet in the US, who is likely to be arrested for their Tweets, what kinds of Tweets are likely to prompt arrest, etc. Students in my First Year Seminar course "The Irish Imagination: Yeats to Bono" developed a platform for digital annotation of Irish literature. Embedded in their platform was a twitter feed of relevant individuals/groups, makin

"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

"Choice Eliminator will eliminate options from a multiple-choice, list, or checkbox type of question. Choice Eliminator is designed for light use only, and may be unreliable when multiple people are taking the form at the same time. Use Dropdown type of questions instead of multiple choice for better reliability. Choice Eliminator will eliminate options from a multiple-choice, dropdown, or checkbox type of question. Great for signing up for time slots or having students choose topics without doubling up. Version 2 uses spreadsheet functions to keep the results up-to-date, besides being more reliable when using limits, this allows you to restore eliminated choices and set the order."

"A pesar de la multitud de cursos, artículos y libros sobre Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos (ABP), muchos docentes siguen "haciendo proyectos" en lugar de "trabajar por proyectos". La diferencia es vital. Por ello, antes de lanzarse a la aventura de poner en marcha un proyecto que potencie el aprendizaje de nuestros estudiantes, quizá sea necesario releer a "los clásicos". El artículo The Main Course, Not Dessert de John Larmer y John R. Mergendoller, del Buck Institute for Education (2010), describe el proyecto en ABP como un plato principal rico en contenidos curriculares y en competencias clave para la sociedad del siglo XXI, no como un postre en el que aplicar los contenidos vistos en clases anteriores. El proyecto como plato principal del aprendizaje: Pretende enseñar contenido significativo. Los objetivos de aprendizaje planteados en un proyecto derivan de los estándares de aprendizaje y competencias clave de la materia. Requiere pensamiento crítico, resolución de problemas, colaboración y diversas formas de comunicación. Para responder la pregunta guía que lanza el proyecto y crear trabajo de calidad, los alumnos necesitan hacer mucho más que memorizar información. Necesitan utilizar capacidades intelectuales de orden superior y además aprender a trabajar en equipo. Deben escuchar a otros y también ser capaces de exponer con claridad sus ideas. Ser capaces de leer diferentes tipos de materiales y también de expresarse en diferentes formatos. Estas son las llamadas capacidades clave para el siglo XXI. La investigación es parte imprescindible del proceso de aprendizaje, así como la necesidad de crear algo nuevo. Los alumnos deben formular(se) preguntas, buscar respuestas y llegar a conclusiones que les lleven a construir algo nuevo: una idea, una interpretación o un producto. Está organizado alrededor de una pregunta guía (driving question en inglés) abierta. La pregunta guía centra el trabajo de los estudia

"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."

"Todos los que empleamos el modelo inverso estamos convencidos de que las PREGUNTAS constituyen uno de los pilares de nuestro enfoque. Las preguntas definen las tareas, expresan problemas y delimitan asuntos. Impulsan el pensar hacia delante. Las contestaciones, por otra parte a menudo indican una pausa en el pensar. Es solamente cuando una contestación genera otras preguntas que el pensamiento continua la indagación. Una mente sin preguntas es una mente que no está viva intelectualmente. El no "hacer preguntas" equivale a no comprender (lograr comprensión). Las preguntas superficiales equivalen a comprensión superficial, las preguntas que no son claras equivalen a comprensión que no es clara. Si su mente no genera preguntas activamente, el alumno ( y nosotros mismos) no estaremos involucrado en un aprendizaje sustancial. (Elder y Paul, 2002: The Foundation For Critical Thinking) Este tipo de metodología, basada en la indagación tiene una relación directa con el uso de la tecnología que empleemos. Por ejemplo, cuando estamos utilizando herramientas como EduCanon, las preguntas pueden tener relación con el fragmento de video que acabamos de ver, pero también, pueden hacer al alumno reflexionar y relacionar la pregunta con algo visto en clase…o simplemente motivarle a pensar en algo que se va a ver en el siguiente fragmento de video.Questions-672x300 Como un aporte personal, estas son algunas ventajas que la herramienta Kahoot me permite hacer en clase, con grupos de 70-80 estudiantes y entre los que participan 10-12 de modo alternativo. Preguntas de tipo factual o conceptual sobre los contenidos que ya hemos visto en clase o que han visto en los vídeos. Como sabéis, Kahoot cuenta con un cronómetro (normalmente activado en 30″) que me permite ver que el tiempo de "respuesta" diferencia entre los que "saben" y los que "no saben". Preguntas de tipo procedimental o metacognitivo. Aquí el tiempo de respuesta siempre es mas

"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."

"EdX is a nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT and composed of dozens of leading global institutions, the xConsortium. EdX offers interactive online courses and MOOCs from the world's best universities and institutions. Open edX is the open source platform that powers edX courses. Through our commitment to the open source vision, edX code is freely available to the community. Institutions can host their own instances of Open edX and offer their own classes. Educators can extend the platform to build learning tools that precisely meet their needs. And developers can contribute new features to the Open edX platform. Our goal is to build a thriving worldwide community of educators and technologists who share innovative solutions to benefit students everywhere. We invite you to explore Open edX and participate in our growing movement. Frequently Asked Questions What is Open edX? The Open edX platform is a free--and open source--course management system (CMS) that was originally developed by edX. The Open edX platform is used all over the world to host Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as well as smaller classes and training modules."

"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"

"Striking evidence has emerged that an ancient virus previously known only from fossil evidence has persistently infected some humans at very low levels for hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. This ancient retrovirus is a kind of living fossil, and the discovery of an intact copy of it within the human genome poses questions as to how it has survived, and suggests others from the distant evolutionary past may lie dormant in the DNA of many species. ..."

código de buena conducta para el uso de dispositivos móviles en el centro educativo

"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."

"Is the form that you receive a message as significant as the message itself? Marshall McLuhan argued that throughout history what has been communicated has been less important than the particular medium through which people communicate. The technology that transfers the message changes us and changes society, the individual, the family, work, leisure and more. Narrated by Gillian Anderson. Scripted by Nigel Warburton. From the BBC Radio 4 series about life's big questions - A History of Ideas. This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive."

"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

"Here's how you can add email notifications to any Google Form in 5 easy steps: Install the Google Forms add-on, then click the add-ons icon inside the Forms Editor (it is the shape of a puzzle icon), choose the Email Notification for Forms menu and then click the Create New Rule menu. The configuration window will open inside the form editor. Enter your full name (or the sender's name) and also specify the list of one or more email addresses (comma separated) who should receive automatic email notifications when a form is submitted. If you would like to send an auto-confirmation email to the form's respondent after they submit the form, check the Notify Submitter option. You'll also need to select the question in your Google Form that asks the respondent for their email address. Go to the next screen and enter the subject line and message body of the email notification. You can customize the emails and include any of the {{form fields}} in the subject or body as explained in the next section. Click the Create Rule button to activate the form notification. Now open your Google Form, submit a test entry and then go to your Gmail Sent Items folder to see the email notification that has gone out to the recipients."