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What is an Enduring question?

What is an Enduring question?. An Exploration into EQ-ness. Overview. What are Enduring Questions? Why are they a part of our introductory courses? How can I seamlessly integrate one or more enduring question into my Perspectives-Enduring Question course?

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What is an Enduring question?

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  1. What is an Enduring question? An Exploration into EQ-ness

  2. Overview • What are Enduring Questions? • Why are they a part of our introductory courses? • How can I seamlessly integrate one or more enduring question into my Perspectives-Enduring Question course? • How can I help students make the connections between my course content and the course’s underlying enduring question(s)? • How can I help my students apply what they’re learning?

  3. What is an Eq? From our documents: Enduring Questions have no obvious answer and have been asked and answered in various ways for millennia. Some examples: • What is the meaning of life? • What is the nature of human beings?

  4. What they’re not • Empirical questions that can be answered by observation of the world and/or studies. • Examples: • What do most people think is the meaning of life? • What do people of religion X think is the meaning of life? • How do human organs work? • What is the history of anatomy? • How have our views of our bodies changed over time?

  5. Where students are (Taken from Chapter 5 of Ken Bain’s What the Best College Students Do) • “Where do we go when we die?” • “Every question has an answer. It’s just a matter of finding it. You ask an expert. To learn, you remember the response. Problems have procedures, and if you follow the recipe, you will find a solution.” • “Is there anything in your education that will help you make better decisions as a juror, citizen, friend, parent, child, student, or in any of the other roles you will play in life?”

  6. Two kinds of problems • “Well-structured problems” Have definitive answers, like algebra problems. • “Ill-structured problems” or ‘Messy questions” Have no clear resolution. There’s no recipe to find a proper response. • What caused the Civil War? • What causes overpopulation? • Should we vaccinate everyone against an epidemic, even if some will suffer severe allergic reactions to the vaccine?

  7. How do people deal with messy questions well? • Talk with lots of people • Argue with people who hold different views • Strong desire to understand the world • Explore and research messy questions • Are supported by a mentor

  8. In a nutshell, THEY… • PRACTICE: They learn to tackle messy questions or ill-structured problems by tackling ill-structured problems and getting feedback on their efforts. And they… • REFLECT: They see their own prejudices and fight with themselves to mold more rational perspectives, conclusions based on evidence and sound reasoning.

  9. How does this relate? • Our goals? That our graduates think critically, know how to solve problems of various sorts (messy and clean), and know how to apply their learning. • What we can do in our P-EQ courses, given the Enduring Questions framework? • Explore the differences between different kinds of questions or problems • Teach the appropriate methods for exploring different kinds of questions • Let them practice and reflect, and give them feedback

  10. To your courses… • What is your Enduring Question? • How do you (plan to) integrate your enduring question with your other course content? • What kinds of assignments does your course employ? • What opportunities are there for your students to apply their learning to ‘messy questions’?

  11. Different Kinds of Questions: • Where’s the President’s chair? • What are chairs made of? • What is it to be a chair? • What purposes do chairs serve in different cultures? • What is a chair? • What is chairness? • How much does that chair weigh?

  12. Questions in Courses • What is distinct about Canada as a nation? • Why do Canadians say “I’m sorry” so often? • What is the current status of relations between Franco- and Anglo-Canada? • What is the difference between ‘melting-pot’ and multicultural approaches to cultural diversity? • Who (really) won the War of 1812?

  13. Possible Underlying EQs… • What is culture? What is the relationship between culture and ethnicity, language, traditions, and so on? • What is nationalism? What are the good and bad sides of nationalism? • What role does/should citizenship play in a person’s identity? • Why do humans fight with each other?

  14. Your EQ and EQ Categories • Why do we have the Four Categories? • Knowledge • Creativity • Ethics & Morality • Culture • What is the current purpose of the Four Categories?

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