Set aside off-topic student questions as QWWNDW ATTs and tell students in advance that many questions will fall in this category¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Because starter pictures elicit many questions that do not match the content goals or cannot be answered with the materials, the facilitators sort them into a named holding category. The article states: "We call these questions QWWNDW ATTs (questions we will not deal with at this time), and make it clear to the students before they start writing questions that a lot of their questions will fall into this category." Easily answered yes/no questions are quickly answered at the start of the next phase without giving away information needed for students' own investigations.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Questions must be sorted by categories (e.g., colors of stars, colors of clusters, brightness, origins, Gas/Nebula) to facilitate selection

Constraints¶

• Facilitators must avoid giving away information for the students' own investigations when answering quick questions

Target Learners¶

• advanced high-school students
• college students

Target Learning Goals¶

• question generation
• selecting relevant data from too much data

Related Strategies¶

• Use carefully chosen starter images to elicit student questions that are investigable with the given materials

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Rafelski, M., Foley, M., Graves, G. J., Kretke, K. A., Mills, E., Nassir, M., & Patel, S. (2010). Teaching Astronomy with an Inquiry Activity on Stellar Populations. ASP Conference Series. https://arxiv.org/abs/1009.5404. doi:10.48550/arxiv.1009.5404