The role of questions in teaching thinking and learning

Official URL: http://itdi.pro/blog/2013/04/15/critical-thinking-adam/

The thing I hate most about my job is the word ‘coverage’. Assessors are obsessed with coverage. If material has been covered, it can be tested. If it can be tested, it will be tested and assessors rest easy in the knowledge that they have done their job well. This naturally leads to an over emphasis on coverage at the expense of engaged thinking, based on the assumption that ‘answers’ can be taught separately from ‘questions’. Assessors are not entirely to blame for this state of affairs. Indeed, the position that formal assessment has been allowed to take in language instruction is merely a symptom of what we are presented with in published course materials. Consider this: every declarative statement in the course books we use is an answer to a question. The teaching world in which we live frequently sees this relationship between the statement and its accompanying question. One seemingly cannot exist without the other. This is a crying shame, as it does nothing to promote thinking of any kind, never mind critical thinking.