Questioning is Learning

Source: http://pixabay.com/en/foot-question-universal-being-450370/

    Students are always asking questions.  Some people, especially parents and teachers, don't like kids asking them questions.  Questions can make adults feel like they are being challenged by the child or inadequate because they don't have the answers.  Questions can be viewed as annoying or a time to say, "just do what I say," or "listen to me because I...."  I can sympathize with some adults, sometimes too many questions can get overwhelming but if we view questions as students wanting to learn about us, the situation, or even what to do next time, our views on questioning will change.

Source:  Matt Reinbold on Flickr at http://goo.gl/05DSOO

    I believe, and I know many other people agree with me, that we should celebrate questions.  Questions represents that they want to know more and wanting to know more means they want to learn.  Isn't that one of our goal as teachers, or even adults, is to teach or be great role models the younger generation?  If we don't allow students to question they may become gullible and uninterested in all the beauty of the world.  We want the youth of our world to ask questions and explore.  That is how they develop and understand who they are as a person.  This will help them find their place in the world.  As adults we should support our kids and students exploration through questioning.  

     Sometimes I feel like I am being asked so many questions from my students that I can't keep up!  I always respond with "I will keep your question and get back with you."  I even had my student write their questions down on the board or Post-It but then I had to make mistakes by losing their question or someone accidentally erasing their question from the board.  The best answer I had to this problem was technology.  I decided at that moment I needed to create a Wonder Wall.  I created the Wonder Wall on Padlet.  This is a place for students to post all their question they have.  We then take time every other week to research and explore their questions.  If they can't find the answers to their questions, I will then help.  I have even jumped on Twitter to ask ColAR app questions about a bird on one of their coloring pages and received a response from a creator of the app.  The Wonder Wall is also a great place for us to record our research results and share it with the other classes.  The students have found the Wonder Wall to be very helpful and powerful.  Students no longer feel like they may forget their question or afraid to ask a question.  They now can just post it to our Padlet and we will get to it later.  I am welcoming my students questions because I want to encourage them to learn through questioning.

    

Options Off The Traditional Bookshelf

 

Image taken from http://pixabay.com/p-67049/?no_redirect

    It is the end of February, and I wanted to wrap up Black History Month with a great book that I could do some close reading of with my 4th grade group.  I also felt I needed try someone else's example of close reading and compare it to how I have been doing close reading with my students.  Also, I craved something that I haven't read before and I needed more than 1 copy.  Where can I get more than 1 copy of a book that I haven't read or the students haven't read from my school's Book Room?  There are many options.
    To start, I went to readworks.org to view some of the book lesson units that they have provided on the website.  There are a variety of lesson units for each grade level.  I chose a grade level lower than what my students are at because my students are reading at a 3rd grade reading levels.  As, I was going through the list of lesson units, I noticed I didn't have most of the books that were listed.  I decided I would start browsing the digital world for the books that were listed.  I hopped over to one of my favorite websites called wegivebooks.org.  We Give Books has a splendid amount of books to choose from that parents, teachers, and students can read for free online.  I have use this website in the past do read books as a whole group with a large class and a small group with my students with learning disabilities.  I have read the book from the Promethean Board to reading books from iPads with the students.  We Give Books also has lessons and activities to go with some of their books.  A book that interested me from ReadWorks lesson units was The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind By William Kamkwamba.  I got lucky because We Give Books had that on their bookshelf.  Yay!
    To help students saffold before reading the book, I will be using Padlet for students to reflect on what they think life would be like without electricity and running clean water.  That question was apart of step 1 in the lesson from ReadWorks.  I thought it would be a great way for students to be engaged with the book and reflect at the end of the book on what they thought before reading and how they felt about it now.
    Now, I had a plan, a lesson and a book that my students would find interested.  My students and I will be reading a great book this week to wrap up Black History Month.  The students really enjoy the change of reading books on digitally on the iPad.