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October 13, 2005
In Class This Week
This week I did an in-class exercise on Questioning Your Questions. It's an adaptation of a theme developed by Paul and Elder in Critical Thinking (Chapter 6 of the 2001 edition). In the exercise (link here), I ask the students to question the kinds of questions they ask various sources. Simple what-is-it questions ought not to be asked of expensive sources. For example, don't ask an expensive consultant what IPv4 is; go to whatis.com, instead. Etc. Anyway, as an example of an expensive source, I asked, "What questions are appropriate for asking your professor?" Total silence. So, I asked again, louder: "Give me an example of a question that would be appropriate to ask your professor." Silence again, and then a small, quiet voice in the back of the room says, "Have you lost weight?"
I'm still laughing. And, darn it, the answer is "No, I haven't."
Posted by DavidK at October 13, 2005 07:08 AM | Permalink