Curiosity
Questions are an essential driver for cognitive development in children, and they remain an important tool for learning throughout our lives.” So, we’re inviting you to be as curious as that child who asks questions constantly!
Sometimes, we stop ourselves from asking questions. Maybe someone laughed at our question in the past. Maybe we feel like we should already know the answer. Maybe something worse happened. How can we get over those feelings? Start small and start safe, then build your way into the bigger (for you) situations over time.
Source: Photo by Allan Mas
Why?
Curiosity is one of the most powerful learning tools. It helps you think in new ways. Whether you’re a researcher or doing another kind of graduate studies, we all need to be problem-solvers. Curiosity can help us think about issues in all new ways and bring together diverse ways of thinking about the problem and its potential solutions… if we’re open to the process.
Learning activity: Building curiosity skills
The strongest learners get help. Identify some of the supports you’ll use, which will help you maximize your potential. Here are some examples of supports that could be useful to you. Read the options below and decide when and how you will use them, if at all. You can also add your own.
1. Get curious about this photo! Ask as many questions as you can think of! Write your answers on your own first, then we encourage you to share them in Discord.
Consider questions such as
- Who…?
- What…?
- When…?
- Where…?
- Why…?
- How…?
- And more!
With each of the questions, you can also consider variations by adding words such as “else” (Who else…?) and “does that work” (How does that work? Who does that work for?). You can try negating the question (What is not…? When is that not true…?) or adding “if” (What if…?). And more!
Source: Image by upklyak
2. Wrong answers only! Why do Canadian geese fly in a V formation? Write your answers in Discord.
Source: Image by upklyak
Thanks for doing the activity! The primary purpose for these activities was to practice being wrong and get away from our habits of only seeking the right answer. Realistically, with more complex problems, there’s likely no single correct answer anyways. How did it feel to give a wrong answer on purpose?
Giving a wrong answer or idea is something you can even use as a strategy to help someone explain an idea to you in a different way. Based on your comment, they can hear how you are thinking about the subject and can offer an alternative way of thinking. For example, “That’s not quite right, but… [explains differently]”.
Homework time!
- Over the next few days practice those curiosity skills in at least two different settings. In your Workbook, record the experience and your thoughts about it. You might even start with some of the Rumble starters from the Navigating Difficult Conversations module (e.g., I’m curious… Could you tell me more about… What if… Could you walk me through your thinking…). The more comfortable you feel asking questions and getting curious, the more we encourage you to challenge yourself with discomfort.
- Describe your process in your Workbook, as well as how you felt while asking the questions.