Instructional Tips for the Discussion Tool: Questions

Below are several types of questions the teacher can pose in the Discussion area.

Connections to Experience
When students share their experiences, they are accessing their prior knowledge, and making connections between the content and their own lives.

• After reading chapter one, share an experience you've had with the "Net Generation". Do your experiences confirm what you read or challenge what you read?
• What do you think about the author's comparison of TV and the Internet? Have you seen any evidence of this?
• Share a story or experience that illustrates the "generation lap" Tapscott describes in chapter 3. How did you or the person involved react? How can we facilitate a reconciliation between generations in school settings?
• From this week's introduction page quote, what technology may as well be magic to you? (This class had a weekly technology quote posted on the assignments page. The quote mentioned was: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke)
• Have you ever purchased anything online? What was it? What was your experience like? Would you do it again? If you haven't, then why?

Opinion
Asking student's opinions requires them to take sides on an issue, to analyze the options and internalize them, making a commitment.

• Respond to one or both of these questions. Do you agree with the description of your generation? What about the others described? Do your experiences challenge or confirm the description?
• How do you think online interaction affects kids? How has it affected you? (experience)
• "Is this a generation of children who are beginning to process information and reason differently than the rest of us?" p. 102 Growing Up Digital

Future Thinking/Possibility Thinking
Imagining what could happen in the future requires students to make predictions based on the knowledge they have.

• The cartoon at the beginning of chapter 7 shows the question some people have: if there's all this information out there, why do we need teachers? I think there's some great answers to this question - but I'm sure you have answers too. What would your answer be if a parent or student asked you this?
• Don Tapscott has made some predictions about what the workplace of the future will be like. What about your workplace? Be creative and imagine what your classroom will look like in 5, 10, or 15 years from now. Thinking back to last week's question, will you still be needed?

Choice
Giving students choice empowers them to be in control of their own learning.

• As far as I know, Don Tapscott is not an educator. Do you agree with his thoughts on learning in ch. 7? Or you can answer this: There's a lot in ch. 8 that might be disturbing. What good can come of it? How can teachers respond? There's lots we could discuss. Take your pick!

-Questions from exemplary course WebQuests by Janine Lim and Kevin Clark.
Questions are designed to start discussion on the book Growing Up Digital by Don Tapscott.

Divergent Questions
Learning to ask divergent questions as well as convergent ones will increase the level of thinking/learning.

Divergent questions are:

• productive in contrast to reproductive (students are asked to produce rather than reproduce).
  • e.g. List different ways to “see” without using the eyes. // List occupations that require eyesight.
• comparing and contrasting (moving from concrete to abstract ideas)
  • e.g. Compare/contrast books and lectures. How is building a building similar to/different from building a relationship?
• invitations to share feelings and opinions (opens the door to motivation through emotion)
  • e.g. Describe how you feel about statistics/collaborative learning/lectures/ college.
• invitations to recall past experiences (validates the personal and sets the stage for integrated learning)
  • e.g. Recall a time when dialogue worked well / didn’t work well. Explain why.

-adapted from Nancy Johnson