Education

Our new book on the use of the Right Question Strategy in the classroom was published on September 20, 2011:

The Right Question Strategy in education is fully explained in a book published by the Harvard Education Press:

Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions 

 

Using the Right Question Strategy in the classroom has led students to: 

  • Be more engaged
  • Take more ownership of their own learning
  • Attain deeper comprehension
  • Develop a new sense of discovery and excitement about learning
  • Gain confidence in their ability to think and learn
  • Improve their overall academic achievement

 

These striking outcomes are all the result of students learning to ask their own questions by using the RQI’s Question Formulation Technique™(QFT). Developing the ability of all students to formulate their own questions could be the simplest, most powerful “great equalizer” of any skills and content taught in schools today. But, the deliberate, explicit teaching of the ability to formulate questions is rarely done. Most people acquire the skill through exposure to an elite education, or years of higher education, advanced training and much professional experience.

The skill of question formulation is indeed considered so worthy of learning and so complex that it may be assumed that students cannot learn to do it by the time they finish high school. For example, when The New York Times asked several college presidents what a student should learn from four years of college, Leon Botstein of Bard College said the best a college can do is prepare them to ask strategic questions, and Nancy Cantor of Syracuse University affirmed that the best a college can do is prepare its graduates to ask the right questions. (8/4/2003).

RQI has figured out how to teach the powerful skill of question formulation in a short amount of time, and in a way that could be integrated into any subject matter at any level of education.

 

Resources

Learn more about how to bring The Right Question Strategy to your school and community: www.rightquestion.org/resources

 

Voices From the Field

(The Right Question Strategy) has made me realize that asking questions is not something I ask my students to do frequently. Usually, they answer questions that I create, so this has definitely changed my perspective on what it means to have a "student-centered" classroom and what it means to foster independent thinking in young minds. Ling Se Peet, Teacher, MA. 

I see that (knowing how to ask questions) is what I'd like my students to do but, I never had a process for doing it. Laurie Gaughran, Humanities teacher, NY

They retain information better because they own it. And every teacher wants to help students retain information. Because when they (the students) remember their questions and then get the information, it's like they recognize it as what they wanted to know. They say: "oh yeah, yeah, that's what I was looking for." Charlese Harris, Math teacher, MA