New research is more like shopping and cooking. We expect students to select and gather the choicest raw ingredients with great care and then cook their own meal. No microwave research reports! No fast food! No simple cut-and-paste.

Answers to good questions must be invented, not found. They require students to evaluate, synthesize and analyze. To help us develop rich lessons and good questions, Jamie McKenzie has developed a web site, questioning.org. As a part of the site, teachers can work through two Module Makers (I and II). The modules explain the importance of good questions and also provide activities that lead users to analyze great questions and the activities associated with them.

Questioning is central to learning and growing. An unquestioning mind is one condemned to "feeding" on the ideas and solutions of others. An unquestioning mind may have little defense against the data smog so typical of life in this Information Age. An unquestioning mind is like a sloop without a rudder. Questions enable us to make changes in life, to invent new and better ways of doing things. In all too many cases, the questioning process has been reduced and oversimplified to a search for prepackaged answers. Artificial intelligence abounds. Questions are intended to provoke thought and inspire reflection, but all too often the process is shortcircuited by the simple answer, the quick truth or the appealing placebo. (McKenzie, 2001; see also http://fno.org/nov99/techquest.html)

Graphic credit: Jamie McKenzie (http://www.questioning.org/Q6/research.html)