Writing Good Questions

Over the course of the last two years, one thing that has become abundantly clear is that one of if not the most important parts of successfully implementing Harkness is my classroom has been the packet of exercises we put together for the honors pre-calculus course.  It was a struggle to find just the right balance between not challenging the kids and pushing them too hard.  With every topic, we had to make sure that the problems led the students to the information in such a way that they were stretched just enough to put the next step along the path within their reach without making the stretch so minimal that they didn't see the value in doing the exercise.  Since we wrote the exercises, I have discovered a term for this type of exercise.  It is what Dan Meyer refers to as "perplexing".  His definition is that this kind of question is one with the following qualities: (1) the students understand what is being asked; (2) the students do not currently have the answer; (3) the students believe they have the ability to answer the question.

Within the last week, though, I have stumbled upon one of the reasons the writing of the questions was so difficult: I was never shown how to write good questions.  Not during the earning of my undergraduate degree. Not during any of the professional development at any of the schools at which I have taught in my 23+ years of teaching. Never.  Once this hit me (and why it didn't before this I have no idea), I asked a few of the other math teachers as well as a few of the teachers in other subject areas, and the response was unanimous: no one was ever shown how to write a good question.  And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is probably the key obstacle to implementing any kind of meaningful reform in education.  If we, the professionals, struggle to write good, meaningful, well-structured questions, what are our options?  More often than not, the option is to go looking for questions, normally in textbooks from which we aren't currently teaching or from other teachers.  The trouble, of course, is that is we are talking about writing questions that are fundamentally different than any we have asked before (for instance, the questions we needed for our worksheets or the questions that we need to prepare our students for the performance assessments of the common core end-of-course tests).  The "new" textbooks that claim to be designed for the common core tests are not up to the task, and the other teachers are in the same position we are.

This is one of those problems to which I really don't have an easy answer.  For us, writing the exercises was a long, difficult process, and honestly, we are still editing them, searching for better ways to put the scaffold in place so the students can successfully make the climb.  It was also one of the most rewarding things I have ever done in terms of professional development.  Digging that deep into the material revealed new connections and provided new insights into a course that I had taught for over a decade.  And because of that, writing your own questions is, in my opinion, one of the best things you can do to improve as a teacher.  I'm not saying it's easy, and in fact I know from personal experience it's not.  But it's sooo worth it.

Differentiating Instruction

Looking at a classroom that is running in Harkness mode, it is easy to see that many of the best practices we are supposed to implement are happening.  The classroom is student-centered.  The students are highly engaged. The students are taking responsibility for their own learning.  However, one thing that people perceive as missing is differentiation.  "You mean that they do this discussion thing every day?  What about the kids who have trouble learning this way?"

One of the things I used to question a few years ago was how to structure a lecture in such a way that I would be able to reach the variety of kids in my classroom.  And honestly I used to pass off the idea of making that happen as impossible.  Over the course of the week I might have been able to teach one day or one part of one day for each of the kids, but to try to reach each of the kids every day during every lesson was simply not an option.  So, I relegated the idea where I normally relegated all such ideas: into the category of "educational theory that isn't in touch with reality".

However, with Harkness, what I have found is that the differentiation all but takes care of itself.  Early in the trimester, it is fairly common for the kids to ask if it's ok for them to attempt to solve an exercise a certain way.  "Am I allowed to draw a picture for this?"  "I found a formula...can I use it?"  But after a few days of hearing me say, "Yep, if you think a picture will help," or "As long as you can explain where the formula comes from,", the kids begin to figure out that they can use pretty much whatever method they can devise and understand.  Slowly they begin to take responsibility for their own learning, and once that happens they begin to figure out how they learn best.  Does drawing a picture help, or do the equations make more sense?  Or is it some combination of the two...or something else that works best?  Because they aren't being told how to solve the exercises, they tend to head for their comfort zone rather than doing what they're told, and in that the instruction is differentiated.  Granted, the kids who are stuck in memorization mode don't reach this point as quickly since they are spending their time desperately looking for someone to imitate rather than working through the material themselves.  But even in that search these kids tend to find which of the other students attacks the exercises in a way they understand, and in that the instruction is differentiated.

So yes, we do this discussion thing every day.  And it's the most differentiated the instruction has ever been in my classroom.

How to Succeed in a Discussion-Based Classroom

The second test of the trimester happened last Tuesday, and after grading them one thing became abundantly clear: some of the kids have caught on to trying to understand the material, while others are still clinging to trying to memorize the material.  The kids who are trying to understand the material are the ones who are more thorough in their preparation, more active in the discussions, and therefore are doing better on the tests.  Those who are still trying to memorize the material give up easily on their homework, passively take notes in class, and are not doing as well on the tests.

In terms of the homework, let's be clear: the exercises have been scaffolded so that the kids should be able to make the connections between what they already know and what the exercise is asking them to do.  It may take looking up a definition or finding a formula they've forgotten, but the work is within reach.  The kids who are trying to understand the material may not successfully complete all of the exercises, but on those that they get stuck, they write out the questions they have and therefore come prepared to discuss each of the exercises regardless.  The kids who are struggling still seem unwilling to work through an exercise if the path to a solution does not present itself within a few seconds of reading the problem.  During the discussions, these kids tend to mindlessly take notes, trying to copy everything being said and everything written on the board without putting thought  into what it is they are writing.  By contrast, the kids who are trying to understand the material are more deliberate in their note-taking, waiting until the end of the discussion about a particular exercise and writing down only the important, underlying ideas and processes.  When the tests come around, the kids who are used to struggling with the exercises and have focused on learning the ideas and processes are not thrown off by the fact that the exercises on the test are not essentially identical to those on the homework; instead, they have practice with being persistent and with using the knowledge they have in a "new" way.  Those who have been trying to memorize the material tend to quickly get defeated and resort to writing down any formulas and definitions they remember in the hopes of getting some partial credit points.

While I feel for the kids who are still stuck in memorization mode, their struggles have convinced me all the more that running a discussion-based classroom is the right thing to do.  In addition to learning "the basics", the kids who are putting in the effort to learn the material are also learning problem-solving and, more importantly, are learning how to learn.  In other words, they are learning what they should be learning...what they wouldn't be learning if all I was asking them to do was memorize the material for the test.  So the question is how to convince the memorization kids that they need to change, and then help them do it.  It's not an easy sell, since memorization has worked for them for years, and probably still works in a number of their other classes.  Hmmm...

Meanwhile, at The Ohio State University

This weekend was parents' weekend at Ohio State, and I spent a wonderful weekend with my daughter who is a sophomore there.  Among other activities and presentations we attended was one by Dr. Matthew Stoltzfus (or Dr. Fus, as he is known to his students), a chemistry professor who has flipped his general chemistry classes.  Yes, this means he has flipped a class that regularly has over 200 students per section in a large lecture hall.  Yes, it means he doesn't lecture, at least not in the way that any of us would expect.  His class is very interactive and very discussion based, with the general setup of the class being: (1) the students watch the introductory video on the material before class; (2) the students are given a situation or problem to discuss, and Dr. Fus walks around, guiding the discussions but not giving away the answer; (3) the students enter their response electronically, and Dr. Fus, receiving the responses in real time, goes around and gives advice and suggestions to the students; (4) Dr. Fus gives a short explanation of a similar or related situation; (5) the students resume discussing the original problem, with an opportunity to change their answer if they want.  For the most part, the students arrive at the correct answer after the second attempt.  It was really neat to see that the idea of not lecturing for 50 minutes straight while the students take notes has begun to be put into practice at the college level.  I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Fus briefly after the presentation, which included us answering a simple chemistry question in the manner described above.  He said that there are other professors who are getting away from the traditional lecture and, in different ways, implementing a more interactive, discussion-based method of instruction.

Then at lunch, I had the opportunity to have a discussion with another student at OSU.  Along the way, he asked how my daughter and I had spent the morning, and I told him about the presentation by Dr. Fus. The student said that he has had several professors who have flipped their classroom, some good, some bad.  Responding to my question about what he saw as the difference between the good and the bad, he said that it really seemed to come down to how much the professor interacted with the students.  In his opinion, those who did had a great class, and he added that he felt he got more out of those classes than he would have from a traditional lecture.  However, he said that he felt he would have gotten more out of a traditional class than he did from the classes in which the professor did not interact with the students but instead essentially provided a space for the students to discuss the lecture they had watched.

Needless to say, this was all music to my ears.  Student-centered, discussion-based guided inquiry as the basis for learning in a college classroom dispels the misconception that we at the high school level need to be lecturing since this is what the kids will experience in college.  The mentality among some high school teachers is that high school needs to be the bridge between a school experience where the teacher adjusts to the students, and college where the students must adjust to the professors.  To see a professor as student-focused as Dr. Fus, and to hear from him and from the other student that this is (finally) beginning to happen on college campuses reassures me that we who are (finally) implementing this at the high school level that on the right track.

And it energizes me to continue to spread the word about the Harkness philosophy.  On we go...