What is the meaning of life? According to Douglas Adams author of “Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy” it’s the number ‘42’. What’s this have to do with CLN 650 Information-Learning Nexus you ask? Well, it’s the importance of the question as a form of technology. Get my drift here? If you're reading this and you're thinking, okay, there you go I now know the answer to life, the universe, and everything - then you really need to read below. The logical thing you should be thinking is, well, hang on what's Douglas Adam's evidence and research to back up his claim? Why isn't the answer 43, 16, or the square root of 42?
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| Marvin the Robot - of course, you probably knew that already... |
When I think of the word technology, I tend of think of computers, robots, and big screen TVs, but in reality technology is really anything that is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes (Oxford dictionary). So, when you apply questioning in the practical context of inquiry-based learning, it is indeed a technology.
McKenzie (2005) states that: “Questions and questioning may be the most powerful technologies of all.” He’s right, because we wouldn’t have big screen TVs and computers if somebody somewhere down the track didn’t say….. “Hmm, is there anyway to make TVs really big?”, or “I’m tied of working out calculations manually, surely we could make a machine to do this?”. When you think about it, a lot of things in our world started off with some sort of question. So, I have to agree with Mckenzie on his idea of the power of the question.
It is interesting to note, that along with questioning, comes the idea of dealing with information to answer a search/query. Going back to the Douglas Adam’s example, can you trust Adam’s answer to the meaning of life? Well, no, because Adam’s is an author and Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy is fiction. To figure out whether information can be trusted, you need to use what McKenzie calls “Powerful questioning” – asking the questions about so called “answers”: who is providing the information, from what sources, can they be trusted, what are their qualifications….the list goes on.
It’s here I’m going to note McKenzie’s PRIME QUESTIONS, questions key to learning. McKenzie states that the “most important thinking requires one of these three Prime questions”:
• WHY? “Why do things happen the way they do?” (Cause-and-effect and relationship between variables)
• HOW? “How could things be made better?” (basis of problem-solving and synthesis)
• WHICH? “Which do I select?” (thoughtful decision-making – a reasoned choice based upon explicit criteria and evidence)
Here's a good example of questioning (above), if you're not a car person you would be thinking - strange, there's a car on this page. If you were a car person and applied questioning, you would be thinking - what sort of car is this? Hang on, it looks like a mini. Hey, what's going on here, if this is a mini why has it got a funny rear window and why is the boot lid upside down?
I’m concluding this entry with these quotes:
“Essential questions offer the organising focus for a unit”
----->(important for classroom/TL use)
“The quality of students lives will be enhanced by equipping them with powerful questioning skills…”
---->(I think we can all benefit from powerful questioning skills, not just the students!)
That’s it for now, can’t keep the eyes open. Sorry, I should be asking “why can’t I keep my eyes open?”, I think McKenzie would be proud that I’m already applying his questioning skills…
