Carnegie Chronicle: Questioning Questions
The following complimentary feature article from the National Teaching and Learning Forum details one faculty member's journey as she engages in the process of her SoTL research. While each person's SoTL research experience is in some ways unique, sharing the process can lead to insights regarding familiar patterns and key transition points.
CARNEGIE CHRONICLE:
Questioning Questions
Laura Greene, Augustana College
I sometimes think that students must feel as though they live in a world of questions not their own. Teachers often provide students with questions for a reading assignment in advance (“Here are some questions I’d like you to think about for next Wednesday’s reading”); even more regularly, they assign questions to be answered in papers or on tests. Reasonably enough, most students conclude that it is the teacher’s job to ask, and their job to answer. And if they get the answer right, they’ve learned something.
Most of us who teach make pretty different assumptions. We know that inquiry lies at the heart of every academic endeavor. The best professors don’t want to teach their students the “facts” of the discipline so much as they want to help them construct knowledge by asking interesting questions within that discipline. We want our students to inquire—with energy, commitment, and passion.
To view the remainder of the article follow this link: Questioning Questions - Update 4/5/05: This article was featured in the March edition of the National Teaching and Learning Forum and is no longer available online. However a new article can be viewed each month on the site: NTLF