How Can a Question Activate Schema?
Other questions are conversational in style, but also serve to activate schema and prepare students for new information/skills/learning.
Examples
- Are you attending a university near your home, or did you travel to attend your university?
- What factors attracted you to this university?
- After your graduate, will you search for a job in this area, or are you willing to relocate?
By answering these questions, students are actually identifying what geographers call “push” and “pull” factors in patterns of human relocation. The students have thought about and experienced these factors without knowing the terms. Their personal experience will help the terms and the concept resonate and be remembered.
How Can a Question Spark Reflection?
Examples
- In this chapter we are going to study ways to respond to students when they answer incorrectly in front of the class. We are going to learn specific methods for enlisting peer support and encouragement, and specific responses to avoid because they have potentially long-term negative impacts on the student. Take a few minutes to respond to the questions below. Write your responses in your reflection journal.
- Think back to a moment in class when you felt publicly embarrassed or lacking in some way.
- Did others know how you were feeling?
- How did these feelings and this experience affect your participation in class? Other than knowing the “right” answer, if you could change one thing about the situation, what would you change?