Peer Teach Week 6 (KA): More Questions

KA presenters: Jessica, Josh, and John 

Not all those who wander are lost – JRR Tolkien

Ciardiello’s emphasis on question finding is essential to the idea of teaching through inquiry. Being able to excite your students about a subject through questioning will be one of your ‘ah-ha’ moments in teaching.  When students ask a question that you have not even considered you feel proud and a little shocked; students always manage to rise to the occasion when they are challenged.   Ciardiello’s four levels of questioning are an essential part of understanding how to teach through inquiry: Memory: “Who was the first President?”, Convergent: “How did the presidencies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson differ?” Divergent: “ If you were president how would you be able to better balance our budget?” Evaluative: “ Defend your position on supporting government run healthcare?”  Thinking back to my days as a student in pubic school I scarcely remember any questioning past convergent. Now even our state standards are requiring a deeper understanding of content using TEI questions; this type of deep understanding can only come from teaching through inquiry and using question finding.  Both strategies suggested by Ciardiello emphasis and foster the concept of ‘deeper thinking’ in the classroom. I also think that the Reciprocal Teaching strategy or ReQuest and the QAR strategy would both work well with Ciardiello’s techniques.