Role of questions in inquiry-based instruction: towards a design taxonomy for question-asking and implications for design

Many theories and models describe the various cognitive processes individuals engage in as they solve ill-structured problems. While diverse in perspectives, these theories and models uniformly agree that essential aspects of complex problem solving include iteration and inquiry. This paper further argues that an important yet overlooked component of knowledge construction during problem-solving is the ability to ask meaningful questions. What is needed, but not adequately articulated and validated, is a theoretical taxonomy of question-asking to better understand and guide a learner’s reasoning process. Based on the expert–novice literature, we proffer the following question taxonomy: shallow/simple (verification, disjunctive, concept completion), testing (example, feature specification, quantification, definition, comparison), and deep/complex questions (interpretation, causal antecedent, causal consequence, goal orientation, instrumental/procedural, enablement, expectation, and judgmental). We, therefore, build on existing theories/models of problem-solving, failure, and reflection and their implications towards a taxonomy of question-asking. Given this taxonomy, researchers and designers can better understand learners’ level of understanding and problem-solving trajectories.

     

Continuing Education Module: How to Connect With Parents by Using Updated Lamaze Messages

Lamaze International partnered with Edelman, an international public relations firm, to re-brand the organization through its messaging to elevate its relevance among key stakeholders. Sound primary and secondary research revealed new ways to communicate the Lamaze message to women, their families, and their care providers. Various tips and tools are presented in this article to enable childbirth educators, care providers, and birth advocates to communicate these new messages more effectively to parents.     

Learning to Love the LOR: Implementing an Internal Learning Object Repository at a Large National Organization

This article is a case study that discusses the development and implementation of an internal learning object repository (LOR) for a large national organization with a distributed working environment. It describes the organizational environment and why an internal LOR was needed. It describes technical considerations, including the various document management systems (DMS) available, and why an open source DMS was selected to use as an internal LOR. Lastly, this article weighs the benefits and challenges of implementing a LOR across a distributed working environment and reflects on challenges associated with implementation.