What's spiRal qUestiOning? =)

"whY doEs the spidEr have 8 legs? whY is the skY blue and not gReen? whY do i have stripes and not you? whY?? whY??? WHY??!!" ~Hobbes

"AAAaaaaaarGGgggggghhhhhZZzzzz.....!!!!!!! just shudddduppp!!!" ~ Calvin

HAhaha.. familiar isn't it? I'm sure we would have met an inquistitive student like this, once in a while! Well... some are true troublemakers, while others are genuinely interested in finding out more! hah.. I remember how I used to be one of those rebellious ones, furiously waving my hands waiting to ask some silly question and get the thrill of having the teacher dumbfounded! ;p haha.. oOps! I hope I won't get retribution in the future! hee.. Anyways, during this lesson we watched a video on how this really good teacher engages her students in the thinking process through a series of spiral questionings! It was amazing! That video showed me that students can be really knowledgable and creative, thus teachers do not necessarily always have to be the answer-providers! In fact, students learn and remember a lot better when they are made to think through issues and draw conclusions on their own! =)

The pattern of spiral questioning follows like this:

1. Observation (simple enough to engage everybody, with no interpretation but just observation)

2, Application (in context)

3. Analysis (requires some inference from data)

4. Prediction (helping them to paint beyond what they can see)

5. Synthesis (write down student's comments, combining all the information together and make connections)

6. Evaluation (What do you think?)

Hmm.. guess very often we are reluctant to engage in such questioning in our lessons because, unlike our usual lesson plans, this strategy reduces the amount of control we have over our lesson, due to the inability to anticipate the answers of the students! Moreover, sometimes as teachers we might be uncomfortable with the possible silence that might arise in class and our impatience cause us to rush through, instead of waiting for an answer!

At the end of the lesson, we each jot down three things that struck us.. and mine were these:

1. Students can actually have very interesting and creative answers that should be harnassed!

2. Synthesis: learning occurs when patterns are drawn! (always ask "whAt's in common?")

3. Repeating can be very helpful for weaker students. It is also good to use captions with pictures and create notes on transparency/whiteboard using their responses.:)

"Whenever we think, we think for a purpose and within certain point of view, which is based on certain assumptions/consequences. We use facts/data/evidence to make inferences and judgements based on theories/comcepts in attempting to answer questions/problems."

- Richard Paul on Elements of Reasoning