More thoughts about questions (and a little about answers)

Another skill that I have come to greatly appreciate and value is being able to phrase a flexible question. I observe this in homework and tests given by various Stanford instructors. Most directly, the objective is to provide less than adequate information to derive a perfect answer, and to have students make their best assumptions or estimates in the thought process. Conversely, questions are sometimes formed with too much information, and the student has to use their discretion and be selective. Beyond the academic value of approaching problems through various methodologies and frameworks, this encourages students to take risks, support themselves, and develop confidence. These are all extensible skills that are required in creative and leadership work. We can provide exercises with the too little or too much information situations, and see the behavior that results. This would be an interesting experiment on an individual scale as well as at a group or team level.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Ideas, Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.