Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

The Essential Fluencies are a solid foundation for effective modern learning. They cover all the bases of the skills students need for success beyond school. Developing these Fluencies in our students is a critical thinking journey in itself. That’s why you’ll find good questions at the heart of Essential Fluencies development.

Every stage of every Fluency asks us to think deeply and critically, and their embedded skills and abilities are about stretching thought and imagination. By asking good exploratory questions, students learn the essence of each Fluency and its phases. That’s what the following lists are meant to give you and your students.

Critical thinking isn’t a skill, nor is it content knowledge or even evidence of understanding. While it involves and requires these ideas, critical thinking is also very much a state of mind — a willingness and tendency to sit with an idea and ‘struggle wonderfully’ with it.

In critical thinking, there is no conclusion; it is constant interaction with changing circumstances and new knowledge that allows for broader vision which allows for new evidence which starts the process over again. Critical thinking has at its core raw emotion and tone. Intent.

Your students have questions, but they rarely ask them—especially at the beginning of the semester. They feel awkward or embarrassed, or maybe it’s just inertia. Whatever the cause, the vast majority of student questions go unasked. For teachers, this is wildly frustrating because we can’t answer the questions they don’t ask (though some questions can be anticipated). In many cases, the unasked questions represent anxieties and uncertainties that negatively affect students’ performance in class and inhibits their learning. This is a particular problem in the sophomore composition class I teach. It has a reputation as a difficult class, so many students arrive intimidated and nervous.

Teachers ask an average of 400 questions a day, or 70,000 a year, according to The Guardian. While many of these questions are generated on the fly, asking effective questions by using questioning techniques (QTs) like those described below prompts deeper answers and engages students in a wide range of critical thinking tasks.