Reflecting on What I Know~ Chapter 5

How can I get my students to ask questions about the research they are conducting?

As teachers, our goal is to help our students develop the ability to read, develop questions, and to answer questions as they strive to gain understanding of the content.  Allowing and promoting self-regulation by the students to explore the answer to a problem is very important and can be done within the NTeQ model.  Self-regulation is a proactive learning activity that students initiate to gain understanding (Zimmerman, 1998,2008).  The students who can self-regulate through a lesson have motivation to conquer the lesson with specific learning behaviors such as reading, listening and asking questions.  My understanding of achieving this outcome is for the teacher to allow the students to be the center of the lesson.  The teacher should be there to guide and to ask questions to make the students think on their own.  Traditionally, the teacher would lecture and give the class memorization skills.  Now teachers are giving problems for the students to solve.  When the student is "forced"to do more of the leg work, they will naturally ask questions to solve the problem.  So I think that allowing the students to have more control of their learning by self-regulations promotes learning by asking questions.

How can I teach my students to solve problems?

To teach students to solve problems you need to walk them through the 10 step NTeQ Model.  This is a students-centered learning process that they can do alone or in groups to find answers to problems,  (Morrison and Lowther, 126).  Within this model we should provide Think Sheets for the students to use.  They help the students understand the content by using appropriate inquiry skills.  Whether it's searching for data or underlining and paraphrasing, they create new ideas and motivation for learning builds. 

I've never used an inquiry-based approach, much less computers-so how is a teacher supposed to do both of these at one time?


My very first instinct was to ask "How on earth did this person get a teaching job?"  Ha!  Seriously though, if you have never used an inquiry-based approach, and much less computers, my first suggestion is that you learn for yourself what you are expecting your students to learn!  Be prepared and research your topic.  Walk through the NTeQ model yourself and explore the way that you can use these two at the same time.  Yes, it's a student-centered approach.  But keep in mind that the students are only as strong as their weakest link!  They WILL ask questions and they WILL need guidance.  If you do not know how to answer their questions and help them reason through the problem, they will not learn all that they can.