Teacher’s Corner

You can use this activity to teach a topic or to just expand student curiosity. 

Students always have zillions of questions, but they don’t always ask them. To help them get answers and expand their curiosity play “What Do You Wonder About.” You will need resource books and a computer (s) or phone(s). Here is how you play.

1. Decide on a topic – a topic of interest or a specific topic you are currently teaching.
2. Have a student ask a question about the topic and then guess what the answer might be.
3. Take several other guesses from the group of students. Write them on a board. Tally who agrees and disagrees with each answer.
4. Look up the answer.
5. If the question is too complicated to easily find an answer, break it down into parts and try to find an answer to some part of the question.
6. Over time, keep looking for more information to add to the answer until the student who asked is satisfied with the answer. Don’t go more deeply than the student seems to need to be satisfied.

Change to a new topic and repeat the steps.

Teachers, you can use this blog in classrooms. Here are two ideas about how.

1. For middle or high school parenting or child development courses:
   • Use the blog for discussion topics
   • Require students to research the topics and agree or disagree with what the blog is suggesting.
2. For all courses, especially English Language Arts:

• Use the blog for writing prompts for paragraphs, theme papers, journal entries, class starters, etc. Have students read the blog and respond to:
• Do you agree with what is being said about kids? Do kids really act, think or feel that way?
• Do you agree with what is being said about parents, grandparents, teachers and child caregivers? Do or should they act, think or feel that way?
• What would be your advice on this topic?
• What was left out of this article?
• If you were a parent, would you use any of this information? How?

Why can this blog be a useful teaching tool?

• Students that see connections between their coursework and their lives do better in school.
• Most students will either be parents one day or have children in their lives that they care about, so the topical information can help them build their knowledge about children and parenting and develop a positive image of the type of parenting they want to do.
• The new core literacy standards adopted by most states call for frequent writing in all courses.
• Newly developed end-of-course assessments to be used by many states will require that students demonstrate that they can think critically. These prompts help students practice critical thinking.
• Newly developed end-of-course assessments to be used by many states will require that students demonstrate that they can analyze what they read. These prompts help students practice analysis.