Activity 1
Twenty Questions
With the Explorers, play several rounds of the parlor game Twenty Questions. (The Advisor begins the game by thinking of an object. Explorers will take turns asking up to 20 questions that can be answered with a “yes” or a “no” to try to determine the object. The person who correctly guesses the object thinks of an object for the next round.) After several rounds, ask the Explorers to discuss these additional questions:
- How did asking questions help you to determine the correct answer?
- How were these questions different from the sort of questions a teacher might ask? How are they similar to the sort of questions a teacher might ask?
- How are the questions in the game we played different from these reflection questions? (Twenty Questions leads to a specific answer; these reflection questions ask participants to think, analyze, and problem solve.)
Transition into a brief review of these concepts:
- Questions can help a teacher find out what students know and understand.
- Questions help to guide students’ thinking and learning.
- Questions can be a tool to engage students. When they are involved, they feel more a part of the conversation.
- Questions can be a way to allow students to discover the answers for themselves. This makes the learning more real and personal for them and they will remember the information longer.
- Questions are a way to emphasize what is important in a lesson.
- Questions can be used to start a quality discussion with and among students.
- Questions can help students retain material by requiring them to put the subject into their own words.
- Questions can lead to a specific answer (convergent questions) or to a discussion about possibilities, ideas, and processes (divergent questions).