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?

International Women's Day/Women's History Month

Tuesday 8th March marks International Women’s Day, while the month of March is Women’s History Month, so we have created a dedicated, FREE iPad activity for your students to use.

This year’s IWD theme is ‘Pledge for Parity’, and anyone can join in to support the event. One way is to pledge your support to one of the following:

• help women and girls achieve their ambitions
• challenge conscious and unconscious bias
• call for gender-balanced leadership
• value women and men's contributions equally
• create inclusive, flexible cultures

There are many ways to put this pledge in action, such as spreading the word (social media details below), organising an event, or helping to get young people discussing such topics and the history behind them.

In light of this, we've created a FREE ‘Women’s Suffrage - UK’ iPad activity for those around 14-16 (or younger/older depending). Working with English teacher Elizabeth Doyle, and an illustrator to bring the information to life, we have a 24 piece, problem-solving iPad activity for students to work on alone, in pairs or small groups. The main task question is 'Who should get the credit for the success of the campaign to give British women the vote on equal terms with men?'

All you/students have to do is:

1. Download the FREE Thinking Kit App onto iPads - click here or search ‘Thinking Kit App’ on the App Store.
2. Go to Educator or Learner then ‘New session’
3. Tap ‘Download task’
4. Enter the number 4 - it will immediately start downloading
5. Tap on the task then begin!

A screenshot of students completing the task in the Thinking Kit App

If you/students want to customise it, you can use the FREE trial of the Thinking Kit Creator (no card details required) to do so quickly and easily. The tool, which can be used on any device on any browser, allows you to open up any public activity and make a new copy to edit as you please.

Ideas:

• Add new bits of information/images or delete some of ours so that you can focus on a particular strand
• Get students to research/discuss the topic then add their own slips of thoughts/information/images. Class members can then use each other's tasks.
  
  E.g they could add more facts, thoughts on how the events impacts modern life/what life might be like now if it hadn’t taken place - anything! It’s a great way to get the students’ creativity flowing at the same time as developing digital literacy skills, writing and speaking/listening.
• Follow Elizabeth’s recommended difficulty levels (included in the description of the task when you download it). These can easily be recreated in the Thinking Kit Creator. The task is by default, the 'hard' level - just delete the slips that Elizabeth hasn't included for easy/medium, and also see the different sub-questions which she has included too.
• Create a brand new Thinking Kit activity on International Women's Day or Women's History Month.

Edit the activity in the Thinking Kit Creator - change text, add/remove images, add more slips, change background.

We’d love to know how you use the activity with your students this month, so please comment below, tweet us at @refthinking or email info@reflectivethinking.com. We’ll feature your feedback on our social media pages and e-news! Remember, download the task with the Thinking Kit App (iPad) and/or edit it with the Thinking Kit Creator (any browser).

For more details on the occasions you can click on any of the links below. There are some brilliant events going on, free resources, discussions and more.

International Women’s Day

• Official website
• Twitter @womensday - When you tweet about it, include #IWD2016 or #PledgeforParity
• Facebook page
• LinkedIn group
• YouTube - see videos and interviews on the topics being considered

Women’s History Month

• Official website
• Twitter @womenshistory