The Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast: How to use questions in new ways

The producer and host of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Bonni Stachowiak, who is also the Dean of Teaching and Learning at Vanguard University of Southern California, recently sat down with the inventor and founder of Question Jam, Pia Lauritzen for a chat about the power of questions in education. Here is a short excerpt of their conversation followed by a few highlights and a link to the full episode. Enjoy!

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Bonni: "Did you notice cultural differences or differing degrees of comfort levels with questions that do not have, quote, right answers?"

Pia: “No. Actually, I didn’t.

The teachers I was observing didn't even go there.

You know, they didn’t go there where it was a possibility for the students to ask these kind of questions.

They were brilliant teachers. I could see that.

But I think it would be a different and maybe even a more fruitful learning environment if educators felt more comfortable establishing a space where students can ask questions that no one in the room is able to answer.

But that’s not how the education system was designed to work, I think.

But I think things are changing right now, and I think they need to change, you know, with AI and everything.

We need to have different ways of of embracing questions because, now, answers will not be the most interesting thing because we have technology providing the answers.

So we need to cultivate our ability to ask insightful questions, and insightful questions more or less by default have no clear answers.

So that’s why we have to discuss them.

That’s why we have to ask them.”

In the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Pia and Bonni also discuss:

🙅‍♀️ Why teaching how to prompt AI-driven technologies is NOT the same as helping students ask more insightful questions.

😱 How to relieve the fears of not knowing & the fear of silence.

🫶 How Question Jam can help educators help students be curious together.

Listen here: Episode 485: How to use questions in new ways.