Kidcast #56 – Questions Make the World Go Round

I’ve spent the week in Ojai, California at the Teach the Teachers Collaborative at the Thacher School. Although the scenery is amazing, my lasting impression about this week comes from the people.  I worked with teachers, science content specialists and instructional technology specialists from the Los Angeles Unified school district.

I shared some ideas with the whole group on sunday night and they helped me with my california transition…I did a ceremonial loosening of the tie. The teachers were really receptive to the possibilities of developing student inquiry and  articulation AND the power of finding their voice and letting it resonate beyond the classroom.

This episode is built around asking good questions. I would argue that questions make up the heart of good educational podcasts, whether teacher or student produced. Questions set our focus, and mirror the needs of our audience. Student podcasts that are designed to be extended academic conversations can really benefit from being scaffolded by a framework of questions.

We’ll look at a couple approaches to generating questions.  The Question Game and using Bloom’s as a framework from finding questions that move us toward higher levels of exploration.

KidCast #56