Today, I had one of those wonderful teaching moments when a student really "gets it" and takes off with with an idea that was planted in my online classroom.  This semester I have team taught a TPS Basics class with David Hicks, professor at Virginia Tech.  He teaches a face to face Digital Inquiry 3 credit semester class to graduate social studies and English education majors.  As part of the course, he asked his 14 students to complete an online asynchronous version of TPS Basics. There are 12 tutorials and #11 is the Question Formulation Technique. 

After completing the tutorial, the students were asked to post a response to these prompts:

1. Search for a primary source at loc.gov that would work as a QF (Question Focus) either at the beginning of a lesson/unit or at the end.
2. Reply to this forum. Type the title of the primary source and describe how and why you think the QFT would work in your classroom.
3. What key learnings did you discover in this week's TPS tutorial and how will this impact your course work this semester as well as your growth and understanding as a  future classroom teacher?

Jenni Gallagher wrote this which really made my day!

Anthony Burns: 

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/abolition.html#obj15

I chose this document because it's so visually rich. It tells a story, but leaves enough unsaid that students would be able to think of a number of questions. I also like this document because it tells the story of one man, which makes it easier to relate to, but it really addresses the larger issues of antebellum slavery and sectional tensions. I could see using the QF as the hook at the beginning of a lesson.

I really loved this tutorial. Coming up with compelling questions is one of my areas of weakness, so I love the idea of having the students come up with the questions. I actually tried this in my class last week, and the questions they came up with were MUCH better than the ones I had been thinking of. I also love the QF routine because I think the students are more invested in discovering the answers when they've come up with the questions.

--Ann

Jenni Gallagher   David Hicks   bestof