There are several generalizations and recommendations listed for chapter four all dealing with using advanced organizers and asking HOTS questions.
While there are many great bits of information in this chapter, for purposes of this week's assignment, let's focus on reading one online article.
For the Best Answers, Ask Tough Questions
(please note the url listed in the book is no longer active, so this is the same article, from a different location)
Discuss your thoughts on the article in the comments section or via email.
Thanks, and have a great week!
I think higher order questions is the area I struggle with the most. My students are Deaf most with low language and it's easy for me to say/think they can't answer this question. I'm going to incorportate more thinking questions instead of recall questions! This will be perfect as we are reading The Giver!
ReplyDeleteIt was fascinating to me that the article brought up the fact that we continue to do research reports that have really already been done. We are in the process of turning into a Connectivism learning enviroment and it's time to change. We should be aware that students are able to find information very easily. It will mean more to them to develop their own research questions.
ReplyDeleteOne app that I love (it also has a website) is Popplet. It's a great way to have students display information using a variety of sources.
This article goes along with every training I've been to. It's hard as a person who had "simple" question think about why's to ask higher level questions. I think it's a great thing because it make students think about their answers.
ReplyDeleteSo far, Linsey, Missy and Liz are spot on with their comments. My classes involve students grades 9-12, below level to gifted as well as special needs all mixed in one class. As a coaching teacher, I must strive to find the highest level thinking questions to fit the individual needs of each student. One problem at this point is we believe all students can "easily" find information on the Internet, but this is not so. I play a Google game that challenges kids to find simple answers to questions like, "What company owns the London Eye?". About 10% of my students can do this fairly quickly. Those are the ones I must challenge with deeper questions such as, "How do you think a "Nacogdoches Eye" would affect our local economy?". Other students would get, "Research the locations of similar attractions around the world and which would you most like to visit?" And the most basic questions would regard technical information about the London Eye itself. What I love to see is a student who is inspired by higher level thinking questions. We definitely need to move students to think for themselves and not parrot what has already been done. I am hopeful at seeing this with trend with a handful of students, nevertheless it is high school and staying within mainstream thinking is still all too popular with most students and easiest for some teachers. The article is Bloom's revisited and like Liz, I agree it correlates closely to current training topics.
ReplyDeleteI thought the part of the article that said “Teach me how to take notes with a purpose, how to organize my ideas as I take notes and how to defend my choices in the form of a presentation.” reached a very good point. In my college years I had a professor who REALLY taught me to take notes with purpose. It was his pet project that we all leave that class understanding how to really take notes and how to make sure they were organized. He would randomly stop his lecturing and call on someone to bring their notes up to do a presentation several times a week on whatever concept he had just finished teaching. If your notes were organized like he’d asked you to organize it was a piece of cake. If not then you looked foolish. I still credit that professor for my ability to take effective notes to this day.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, he was a MATH professor. Not English. Not History. Math. Sometimes you never know what you’re going to take away from a class.
I learned a lot about HOTS during the PDAS training I took to become a certified principal. It taught me to recognize those questions from teachers that were encouraging kids to get up into the higher thinking.
And, although this wasn’t mentioned in the book or article it’s MY OWN pet project so I’m going to mention it here: Give your kids TIME to answer those higher order questions! This is something I have to work on constantly and I didn’t realize that I was rushing answers until I took that PDAS training. I have a tendency to take away discomfort by helping them out with answers and rushing. I struggle with that every day. Silence after you’ve asked a question is uncomfortable for everyone, but higher order questions require a bit more thinking.
The book mentioned using multimedia advance organizers and that would fit very well into my class, as I teach multimedia including animation. It would be easy for me to teach my kiddos to use animation to organize their thoughts on lots of projects, not just the projects inside my classroom.
I have also had several trainings on higher order thinking but I still have trouble realizing how smart my pre k kids really are. A lot times I catch myself wanting to help them answer or saying thats to hard for them. Using higher order thinking strategies with them now in pre k will help prepare them for higher grades. We start our kids on the computer on day one teaching them to be independent learners and how to find information on the computer. Of course they need help, but hopefully we are teaching them strategies they can use independently in the future.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the comments so far but the only thing I could add is that I felt this article was talking to us all in our district. Not only do we need to plan activities with rigor and relevance but our questioning can also enable our students to critically think and reach the Quadrant D level. We can easily open our lesson with a HOT question and start at Quad D and work our way down by breaking it into pieces with various levels of questions.
ReplyDeleteSonya, thank you so much for this article. I will keep it handy as I know I can use the questioning stems in my class as I teach.
Thanks for everyone's comments so far! For me, this is one of those articles that addresses something we all have heard, but yet still goes on. I think the main reason for this is the level of importance of standardized testing---and REAL research (and problem based learning) isn't tested. It can be disheartening to me to see so many students who don't know how to think--to ponder--to wonder, to ask (or answer)difficult questions. While I do understand the desire for accountibility, it seems that we've lost a great something on the way----deep thinking requires time. Teaching students to formulate questions for research takes time. Working together, learning new ways of presenting the information once it has been developed (technology) takes time.
ReplyDelete"While I do understand the desire for accountibility, it seems that we've lost a great something on the way----deep thinking requires time."
DeleteAmen!
I agree that this article is very relevant. My students really struggle with these higher types of questions in class and I believe part of this is a pure lack of exposure. Some students are naturally gifted and automatically "get" this level of questioning. Many students, however, need that scaffolding as they are taught to think through these challenging questions. I still have students who come up to me feeling frustrated as they explain that my lesson or the text didn't give them the answer. It does not occur to them that they actually need to, for a lack of a better term, think. I believe that the increased emphasis on questioning is wonderful. It will really help our students in the long run to increase their exposure to higher questioning immediately upon entering school.
ReplyDeleteBloom’s Taxonomy is something we all have been doing for years. I even remember talking about it when I was in school and they had posters and charts posted in the classroom. Maybe I remember it because one of the posters was shaped like an ice cream cone. lol No but on a serious note sometimes as a teacher I find myself struggling to plan lessons based at the top of the chart and to be rigorous. Especially when you have a classroom with such diverse learning needs. I do agree that moving through the levels is important for the acquisition of knowledge. I do enjoy allowing my students to dig in the world of creativity. It is fun and exciting to see what my students can come up with.
ReplyDeleteThis article reminded me a lot of Dr. Kimberly Welsh a reading professor at SFA. If you ever had a class or training with her, the moment you walk in the room she has you answer a question on paper or a sticky note and place it somewhere in the room and then it is discussed. She teaches using questioning holding us responsible for our learning and encourages us to do the same with our students. This reminds me to slow down and ask the questions and "wait" for the thinking time for them to reply. Great article.
ReplyDeleteWhile technology has created amazing opportunities for students, I think it has also allowed them to become lazy in some areas. As I watch many of my students type papers or assignments on Microsoft Word, I have noticed many students do not capitalize the letter at the beginning of sentences, because they know Word will automatically do it for them. This feature is fine to use when they are typing, but it presents a problem when they must turn in handwritten work. Last week I corrected a senior as he had not capitalized any of the letters at the beginning of his sentences on a written assignment. When I asked him to fix it, he said, “Sorry, I’m used to typing.” So while technology is helpful in some ways, it can cause problems for students if they become too dependent on it.
ReplyDeleteThe article reminded me of that incident, and brought up valid points regarding students knowing how to find good information, record it, and organize it so they can use it for educational purposes. While students are familiar with using new technology, they do now always know how to find the best sources of information. They will take just about any information that pops up at face value. Many rarely read an article in its entirety, and then do not know how to take notes or organize their information. The article and chapter, I thought, brought up some very valid points regarding areas of weakness in the more technologically savvy students.
Higher order thinking questions are a great way to start off a lesson. It really tends to get their minds focused on the topic at hand. On my campus they have really pushed for us to start lessons with the following questions.
ReplyDelete-What are we doing?
-Why are we doing it?
-What have we learned in the past that is helping is now?
-How do we know that we are doing it correctly?
I pose these questions to the students and can tweak my learning based on their responses. We usually have an exit question that they must complete to leave my class. I like to make that question and real "thinker" to make sure the skill or concept was understood.
As Whitman said, time is the only commodity. We seem to be replete with time in August, and by this point, we are looking around and saying "the test is coming, the test is coming!" Not to mention that after spring break, and after the TEST, we seem to turn our classes over to the powers that be for meetings and scheduling and the like.
ReplyDeleteSo, it becomes more imperative for us to adroitly craft the time we have. Something I am still struggling with. My students tend to panic with the "Fat Questions" because they are really much more comfortable with a formula. As a district, we are going to have to work across the board to train students to not panic about open ended questions--to not always think there is a trick. Perhaps those students who are not so GPA focused are able to relax into the stream of doing HOTS.
I posted this before but it seems to be gone so I will write a new post.
ReplyDeleteI agree that with technology there comes a rise in plagerism. I even saw that in my own third grade class today. I can see how the guided questions would be of help to curb the plagerism. Students today cannot think for themselves. They are so used to spitting out regurgitated information that they dont know the why to what they are saying.
We as teachers need to make students think for themselves and not just repeat mindless information and facts.