Ending the year with questioning
With the end of the school year in sight, here are five ways to use student questions to learn, reflect, and celebrate the year’s accomplishments. Students can use questions to take learning outdoors, produce podcasts, create review games, and more.
Five ideas for the end of the school year
Video: Students write their own end-of-year assessment
Another way to use questioning at the end of the year — or at the end of any unit — is for students to formulate the questions they’ll see on their final assessment. That’s what Joshua Beer did with his eighth-grade social studies students in New Hampshire. Students focused on “questions that should be asked about American imperialism at the turn of the 20th century.” Ten of their questions ended up on the assessment.
Watch: The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) for Summative Assessment
Win a gift card: Building self-advocacy skills with the QFT
People use the Question Formulation Technique to build self advocacy skills in many legal and legal-adjacent settings: in the juvenile justice system, disability advocacy, mediation and dispute resolution, and more. If you have a story of how you’ve used the QFT for self-advocacy in a legal setting — or in a setting with ties to the legal system — we would love to hear from you. Fill out this survey, and you could win a gift card as a token of our thanks.
What we’re reading
Here are some things we’ve been reading recently.
- From a Molasses Flood to ‘Titanic,’ 6 Podcasts that Offer a Glimpse into Kids’ Minds — KQED MindShift
- Civic Language Perceptions Project — Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE)
- Ignore the Negativity. Be a Teacher — Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo, Education Week
- Transportation Through U.S. History: A New Primary Source Set — Teaching with the Library of Congress
- These Second-Graders Helped Shelter Pups Find Their Fur-Ever Homes — KQED MindShift
Upcoming learning opportunities
Starting June 7: Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Primary Source Questions. Register by June 1.
Starting July 12: Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: Best Practices in the Question Formulation Technique. Register by June 30.
Your donations mean a lot
When you make a gift to the Right Question Institute, you help bring free resources to teachers and schools. Plus, you help equip people with skills and strategies for solving problems, participating in decisions, and making their voices heard — contributing to a more inclusive educational system, society, and democracy. Thank you for your support.