Week 11: Preparing for Registration & Meaningful Inquiry

Hey guys, this week we began class by meeting with Erin, our honors adviser. She gave us some very helpful tips and advice about how to register for classes but also how to get ready before we register. She told us how we can access our advisement notes which is a major help if you lost the sheet like me! The advisement sheet has all of the information that is needed to register. For instance, it has the classes that are required for your major, and it also has your specific RAN which is your registration number. Without that you can't even get into your account to register. Therefore, this information was very beneficial to us as we plan to register for classes tomorrow!

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We were also assigned an article to read titled The Art of Powerful Questions. This showed what a powerful question looks like and tried to show us how we can begin to ask better questions. In order to ask better questions, it taught us that we first need to change the question words we use. We need to use words like why, how, or what instead of who, when, or where. This is important because it creates the opportunity to engage the audience instead of ask a question that can be answered simply without any elaboration. The article also put some emphasis on how the question addresses the audience. Is it directly harsh to someone? Is it in the face of someone? These types of questions are not necessarily bad, but they may prevent the audience from responding or incite their emotions which can lead to emotional responses that don't truly reflect them. Overall, I learned that I need to ask questions that can be more open to everyone and not too narrowly focused, and I need to ask questions that are more thought provoking! What did you get from the article that can be applied to ask better questions in the future?

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In class on Wednesday, we were all asked to give an example of a situation that has happened recently and to propose a question about the issue. I was partnered with Alicia and the first issue we discussed involved someone picking up an extra shift in order to help out a coworker only to get blamed by the other worker for not working hard enough. The question stated, " Why do some people feel as though everyone else should do all of the work and make their lives easier?" We discussed the issue first and realized that this is actually a common occurrence because it happens all the time in the workplace. With that said, as we evaluated the question we realized that it could be stronger if it was worded better. If it was stated differently it might not incite the emotions of the reader and create more thought provoking discussions. Our second situation was about a roommate who is trying to give advice about relationships. However, they realize that their roommate keeps disregarding their advice by continuing in relationships that follow the same patterns. The question was, " How can a person help influence others?" We both immediately saw a problem with who the audience is for the question. It was vague so if we didn't know the background information we would be lost. This would be a stronger question. Why do people ask for relationship advice if they continue to disregard the help others give them? What do you think of this question?

Overall, it was a great week because we learned an important tool by learning how to ask powerful questions. I hope you learned as much as I did! Thanks for reading!