ACTION RESEARCH: QUESTIONING: AUTUMN 2017
\nResearcher: M Gittins
\nContext: Year 1\/2 questioning
\nDesired Outcomes: Children thinking more deeply about their learning and exploring the points of view of others.<\/p>\n
QUESTIONING – EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE VIEWS: (Question stems below)
\nCan you put it another way?
\nIs there another point of view?
\nWhat if someone suggested that\u2026?
\nWhat is the difference between that view and\u2026?
\nWhat would someone who disagreed with you say?<\/p>\n
I began this research by choosing six children (random selection), interviewing them and recording their responses. At the end of the research, I hoped to see pupils who enjoyed debating and who saw themselves as thinkers with a point of view.<\/p>\n
Evaluation 1 \u2013 intermediate results and conclusion:
\n[Looking at cubes and cuboids]. I asked the question, \u2018how do we know?\u2019 I thought this was effective because it ensured that Child A gave me an answer and articulated his thoughts on a cube. When I asked Child B if he agreed with Child A, or if he had an alternate point of view, this appeared to confuse Child B at first because I assume that he thought I was announcing to the group that I thought Child A was incorrect. However, Child B had the confidence to tell me that he agreed with Child A and that he knew this because the other shape was a cuboid with rectangular faces (hence it couldn\u2019t be the cube).
\nWhen asking children to count the number of cubes and next the number of cuboids and then asking \u2018do we all agree?\u2019, this gave any child who disagreed the opportunity to voice their opinion (and therefore perhaps open up another discussion) and also allowed room to go over these\/any misconceptions present (also known as marvellous mistakes).
\n[Now looking at the difference between 2D and 3D shapes]. The questions \u2018what if someone suggested that 3D shapes have flat parts to them?\u2019 and \u2018what if someone suggested that circles and spheres were the same?\u2019 opened up some good avenues for conversation and the group talked about what was the same and what was different about both of these concepts.
\nThe final learning point from this first evaluation was that, naturally, as the children became familiar with these question stems, they were responding to these different types of questions with more ease. Therefore, as they are exposed to various types of questions in the future, I believe they will more easily be able to tackle and adapt answers to them.<\/p>\n
The time between evaluations:
\nIn the time between evaluations, I kept practising these question stems with the class, analysing and evaluating what the responses told us about children\u2019s learning and ability to answer these kinds of questions. The exercise was then repeated and I looked for any differences in pupil responses, any conclusions from such differences, improvements in responses and improvements in learning.<\/p>\n
Evaluation 2 \u2013results and conclusion:
\nThe second evaluation took place during the first RE day, when the children were asked to guess what gold, frankincense and myrrh represented and symbolised. I used the question \u2018is there another point of view?\u2019 many times and I felt that this encouraged the children to have a go and think more deeply about the potential reasons, using what they knew about both Jesus and the nativity story. A rich discussion ensued and the children seemed excited about getting to the answer. Many of the answers I received from children were in the form of a question; therefore, I think this activity also developed their ability to ask questions. Again, the question stem \u2018Can you put it another way?\u2019 encouraged children to clarify their meaning if it was unclear and explain it again more clearly.
\nWhen looking at artwork of baby Jesus and an image of unknown children, the question \u2018What if someone suggested that this baby was the most special baby in the world and was good at this\u2026..?\u2019 sparked much dialogue. I heard children concluding that you could not tell anything from the images, they looked like normal children and that it was strange to think that this baby was in fact God himself on earth. Another child pitched in, \u2018that was difficult to do because we don\u2019t always know what someone is like just by looking at them\u2019 and \u2018no one looks too special on the outside, it\u2019s the inside which counts\u2019.
\nWhen designing the bedroom of a baby who was also a king, the children gave the rooms swimming pools, slides, rockets and hundreds of toys. Yet, when I asked \u2018what would someone who disagreed with you say?\u2019 this again opened up an in depth discussion about how Jesus came for all people, both rich and poor and how him being born in a stable had huge meaning. The living conditions he was actually in were \u2018awful,\u2019 \u2018poor\u2019 and \u2018practically nothing there\u2019.
\n\u2018What if someone suggested that the wise men visited Jesus as a baby?\u2019 had some children arguing in a healthy way- we looked at a range of images and some children noticed that Jesus was no longer a baby but a toddler. The children who were adamant that Jesus was a baby at the time thought this because in typical nativities, the wise men are not far behind the shepherds. Of course, in reality they were several years behind! Some children made good links here between the picture and the story.
\nThe meaning of Christmas as being \u2018for presents\/Santa\/Christmas trees\u2019 was followed by the question \u2018what would someone who disagreed with you say?\u2019 and this led to answers veering towards the true meaning of Christmas and a greater understanding of thankfulness, gratefulness, celebration of family and of Jesus.
\nIn conclusion, using these question stems meant that the children offered deeper thoughts rather than their first thoughts. The children became more independent thinkers and those children who often would be the last to answer became eager to participate (although perhaps this also had something to do with the guessing element of the one activity). Children were giving reasons for their thoughts and were using each other\u2019s ideas to create new thoughts or to extend existing thoughts. Questions such as \u2018what if someone suggested that\u2026?\u2019 and \u2018what would someone who disagreed say?\u2019 and \u2018 what is the difference between that view and another?\u2019 encouraged children to think about the sometimes stark differences between people\u2019s opinions and understanding of why others may have this point of view. Overall, I believe the best outcome of this questioning was an improvement in extending and challenging the pupils thinking and getting them to consider the views of others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ACTION RESEARCH: QUESTIONING: AUTUMN 2017 Researcher: M Gittins Context: Year 1\/2 questioning Desired Outcomes: Children thinking more deeply about their learning and exploring the points of view of others. QUESTIONING – EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE VIEWS: (Question stems below) Can you put it another way? Is there another point of view? What if someone suggested that\u2026? What … Continue reading “Year 1\/2 Questioning”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minchacademy.net\/actionresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}