When: Thursday, October 1, 2020 3:30 to 5:00 PM EST
Presented by: Luz Santana and Dan Rothstein
Historians and other professionals rely on their ability to ask questions to generate new discoveries, original analysis, & ensure accountability. The ability to ask one’s own questions is a key skill to thrive in a democracy and is a foundational learning skill. The right and ability to pose questions often lies with those who hold power, more authority or more knowledge. In our vision, the teaching of the skill of question formulation helps students to practice the hard intellectual labor of producing, improving, and strategizing on the use of one’s own questions, thereby creating a new starting point for a stronger and healthier democracy.
This event is part of a webinar series – How Can Active Citizenship Demonstrate & Strengthen Democracy? – sponsored by the Virginia Civics Commission in collaboration with the VDOE.
Please register to join.
Speakers
Luz Santana
Luz is the co-director of the Right Question Institute. After coming to Lawrence, Massachusetts, from Puerto Rico, she learned to navigate public systems, become an effective advocate and, among her many accomplishments, became the co-author of one of Harvard Education Press’ all time bestselling books, Make Just One Change to Ask Their Own Questions, and Partnering with Parents to Ask the Right Questions. She is a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded project to teach doctoral students to ask better research questions. Luz has a B.A and M.A. from the Springfield College School of Human Services, and she was a Community Fellow at M.I.T. Luz is dedicated to finding the simplest ways to make it possible for all people to learn how to think and act more effectively on their own behalf.
Dan Rothstein
Dan, co-director of the Right Question Institute, helped developed RQI’s methods that have proven effective across many fields including transforming students’ ability to ask their own questions, a NIH-funded study on fostering patient activation in health care, strengthening parent participation in their children’s education (featured in a book co-authored by Rothstein, Santana and the late Agnes S. Bain: Partnering with Parents to Ask the Right Questions), and increasing voter participation in low-income communities. Dan is committed to honoring the work of more than 500,000 educators and front line service providers around the world who are using RQI’s resources to improve learning and democratic action.