BRIAN HOUSAND, PHD brianhousand.com If Your Students Can Google the Answer, You May Be Asking the Wrong Question Thanks to ubiquitous digital information devices, finding the answer to most questions is only an Internet search away. Now more than ever, we must teach our students to be critical consumers of the information that they encounter, and we must reinvest ourselves in posing questions that involve application and synthesis.

1. If your students can
the answer
you may be asking the
WRONG questions.
Brian Housand, Ph.D.
brianhousand.com bit.ly/
mt-agate

2. brianhousand.com

3. 2014
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11. If your students can GOOGLE the answer...

12. You may be asking the WRONG questions!

14. 42

22. DID

23. RECALL
≠UNDERSTANDING

25. 1) In what year was the first
U.S. postage stamp issued?
!
2) Who was on it?
!
3) How much did it cost?

27. IDENTIFY Important Questions
LOCATE Information
CRITICALLY EVALUATE
SYNTHESIZE Information
COMMUNICATE Answers
NEW LITERACIES
newliteracies.uconn.edu

28. Fiction f rom
Truth using
Evidence

30. “Every man
should have a
built-in
automatic
crap detector
operating
inside of him.”
-- Ernest Hemingway

31. TRIANGULATION

32. WHO
WROTE THIS
INFORMATION?
!
WHEN WAS
THE ARTICLE WRITTEN?
!
CAN THE INFORMATION BE
VERIFIED FOR ACCURACY?

34. B L U F F T H E
I N T E R N E T
S E A R C H E R

35. agoogleaday.com

36. agoogleaday.com

37. google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation

38. AGGREGATOR

40. LiveBinders

42. TRY THIS!
GENERIC SENTENCE FRAMES
“Who are…”
“When did…”
“Why does…”
“What will happen if…”

43. WHO
WHAT WHEN
WHERE WHY
HOW
IS
DID CAN
WILL MIGHT
SHOULD
COULD
WOULD

48. bit.ly/middleschooldrawntolife

49. WHAT ABOUT MATH?

50. Google Trends

52. 101qs.com

55. wonderopolis.com

56. geoguessr.com

57. geosettr.com

58. writingprompts.tumblr.com

59. The whole process of
education should
thus be conceived as
the process of
learning to think
through the solution
of real problems.
!
-- John Dewey, 1938

60. Real World Problems
Academic Rigor
Technology Integration
www.ecugifted.com

61. ANSWERS ARE
EASY.
It’s asking the
right questions
which is hard.- T H E D O C T O R

62. Refine
Questions

63. Can the question be answered by
making observations,
collecting data,
making measurements,
and/or changing variables?

64. Can the question be
narrowed
and focused
enough to look at
a SINGLE variable?

65. Do we have
access to the
NECESSARY
materials to help
us answer the
question?

66. We need students to get
more DEEPLY INTERESTED in things,
more INVOLVED in them,
more ENGAGED in wanting to know,
to have projects that they can
get EXCITED about and work on
o v e r l o n g p e r i o d s o f t i m e ,
to be STIMULATED
TO FIND THINGS OUT ON THEIR OWN.
- Gardner

68. What do
you think?

69. Why do you
think that?

70. How do you
know this?

71. Can you tell
me more?

72. What
questions do
you still
have?

73. If your students can
the answer
you may be asking the
WRONG questions.
Brian Housand, Ph.D.
brianhousand.com bit.ly/
gagc2014