What is Question Week 2016?

What is Question Week 2016?

Did you like how I made the blog title a question? I hope so!

About a month ago I came across Question Week 2016 – it runs from March 13 to March 19 this year and I think the concept of it is brilliant. The opening paragraph of the website:

“It seems we never have time to step back and ask the kind of big, beautiful questions we should be asking—in our businesses, our schools, our daily lives.”

This is true, and while I, and the initiative itself of course say that questioning shouldn’t stop at a week long period, it is a great time to celebrate questions and encourage them in all walks of life.

For those of you in the UK, you might know a BBC programme called ‘The Big Questions’, and I’m sure there will be versions of the show elsewhere too. At university, I jumped at the chance to do some work experience on the show and loved every minute. After my ‘runner’ duties, I got to take a seat in the audience. There are many reasons why shows like this are popular.

Questions are important and are the forerunner to so many TV shows, books, articles, blog post and debates (to name a few). Children are great at questioning things – their curiosity helps them do this. In return, they keep asking questions about weird, wonderful (and sometimes downright odd/uncomfortable/dull) things. This inherent curiosity perhaps fizzles out the older we get, so I think this week is a great time to re-ignite it!

www.questionweek.com has some brilliant ideas for getting involved – whether you’re a student, teacher, headteacher, parent, company or just someone who loves questions! In support, we have also made some of our Digital Mysteries (collaborative learning apps) completely FREE – they all revolve around one main, open question and come with lots of illustrated slips of information to help students come to a conclusion on them!

I also highly recommend checking out www.theschoolinthecloud.org – if you haven’t heard of SOLE before, they are fuelled by ‘Big Questions’. A session typically involves a group of children in one room with several computers. They are given a Big Question (something open with so many possibilities) and left to research it themselves. It’s a brilliant idea and there have been some excellent results so far.

You could also get a free trial of our new tool www.thinking-kit.com which (easily) lets you or students create an iPad activity based around one main question/objective. You add images/information/maps/whatever you like (using any device on any browser). Students then download it onto the FREE app.

Happy Question Week!

Thanks,

Natalie

FREE Digital Mysteries for Question Week

Jenny’s Shadow
Science
Why did Jenny lose her shadow?

Tyke Turner
English/PSHE/Citizenship
Why did Tyke steal a smartphone?

Mark’s Representation of Miracles
Religious Education/Christianity
Why are miracle stories an important feature of Mark’s Gospel?