Research Alert
The Power of Curiosity
A recent study in the journal Neuron indicates that when a person's curiosity about a topic is piqued, it becomes easier for that person to remember information presented on the topic—and even to learn information that's not related to the topic. The study's lead author, Matthias Gruber, noted that its findings "have far-reaching implications for the public because they reveal insights into how a form of intrinsic motivation—curiosity—affects memory."
Participants rated how curious they were to learn the answers to a series of trivia questions. They were then presented with each trivia question followed by its answer after a 14-second delay; during this delay, participants saw a photo of a neutral, unrelated face. Next, experimenters gave participants a surprise memory test for the faces, followed by a memory test on the trivia items.
As anticipated, when a person was curious to find out the answer to a trivia question, he or she performed better at remembering that information. The more surprising finding was that participants who were curious about the trivia questions also did better on the memory test for faces. Gruber hypothesized that curiosity "put[s] the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything around it."
The investigators believe their findings have implications for education. If teachers can somehow get students curious about material they would otherwise consider boring (perhaps by connecting it to something kids are fascinated by), they might enhance students' ability to learn that material—and any material presented with it.
The study, "States of Curiosity Modulate Hippocampus-Dependent Learning via the Dopaminergic Circuit" by Matthias Gruber, Bernard Gelman, and Charan Ranganath, appeared in the October 2014 issue of Neuron.
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Lifting Them Higher—on Bloom's
To help teachers ask questions that encourage student reflection and higher-order thinking, TeachThought has created a list of question stems appropriate for each of the six levels of Bloom's taxonomy. The questions stems can be used for any content area or discipline. For instance, to encourage thinking at Bloom's comprehension level, teachers might ask, "Can you retell ___ in your own words?" For the higher synthesis level, suggested stems include "What would you infer from ____" and "What might happen if you combined ___ with ___?" A chart listing all the stems—as well as verbs to use in crafting questions at each level of the taxonomy (define, interpret, revise, and so on) is available at www.teachthought.com/learning/25-question-stems-framed-around-blooms-taxonomy.
Relevant Reads
A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas by Warren Berger (Bloomsbury, 2014)
Innovators ask questions. The question, "What if we put wheels on it?" led to the rolling suitcase. "What if Morse code could be adapted graphically?" led to the creation of the bar code. "Why did my candy bar melt?" led to the invention of the microwave oven. In this book, Warren Berger tells how many such "beautiful questions" sparked innovations that changed businesses and lives.
Today, questions are becoming more valuable than answers, says Berger. As society's collective knowledge grows and becomes more accessible through technology, no individual can possibly keep up with all the knowledge out there. The good news is that as we find ourselves increasingly surrounded by the new and unfamiliar, we're experiencing something like early childhood: "Everywhere we turn, there's something to wonder and inquire about."
And because the happiest and most successful people tend to be expert questioners, schools' most important job is to foster students' innate curiosity and teach them how to ask good questions.
Numbers of Note
What percentage of students agreed with the statement, "I feel comfortable asking questions in class"?
69 percent in 2010
67 percent in 2011
66 percent in 2012
64 percent in 2013
63 percent in 2014
Source: Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations. My Voice National Student Report for years 2010 to 2014. Author: Portland, ME.
ScreenGrabs
Check out the Teaching Channel, a website filled with videos in which teachers demonstrate various instructional techniques. Watch how these three teachers incorporate questioning into their classroom:
- Karine Schaefer, a 12th grade English teacher at Bronxville High School in New York, sequences questions to guide students through increasingly complex ideas: <LINK URL="http://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/structuring-questioning-in-classroom">www.teachingchannel.org/videos/structuring-questioning-in-classroom</LINK>
- Tita Ugalde, a 2nd grade teacher at Amanecer Primary Center in Los Angeles, incorporates wait time: <LINK URL="http://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/give-students-think-time-nea">www.teachingchannel.org/videos/give-students-think-time-nea</LINK>
- Suney Park, a 6th grade teacher at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, California, turns questions into opportunities for learning: <LINK URL="http://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/dealing-with-unexpected-questions">www.teachingchannel.org/videos/dealing-with-unexpected-questions</LINK>
PageTurner
"Every time we ask students, "What was the name of the town in which the characters in this story lived?" we leave less time for questions like "Why do you think the characters never left home?" —Alfie Kohn
