Challenge Your Mind, Change The World

Raising Questioners: Guiding Your Teen Through the AI Maze

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Could your teen's next question unlock a universe of knowledge, or will it be lost in the echo chamber of artificial intelligence? Our latest episode is a treasure trove for parents and educators determined to fuel the intellectual fire of our younger generation. We unpack the art of questioning and its pivotal role in the development of teenagers as they navigate an AI-saturated landscape. With a blend of expertise and practical advice, we reveal how to cultivate a healthy dose of skepticism and an insatiable curiosity in our youth, guiding them to probe the information they're fed by algorithms and challenge the status quo.

As we dissect the intricacies of the digital realm, we confront the stark realities that today's teens face—from cyberbullying to the flood of online misinformation. This dialogue serves as a beacon for fostering debate and critical thinking, providing strategies to inspire teenagers to take the reins of their own learning journey. We delve into the tools necessary for adolescents to discern the credibility of their sources, equipping them to emerge as autonomous learners and thinkers. This episode is a call to action for anyone invested in preparing our next generation to thrive in a complex, digital society.

In the finale, we shine a spotlight on the limitations and potential biases inherent in AI technologies. Through vivid examples, we demonstrate how AI can misinterpret data and shape perceptions, emphasizing the importance of teenagers learning to critically examine the algorithms that increasingly influence their academic pursuits. Furthermore, we invite our listeners to weave classic literature into the modern discourse, using the hashtag Classic Lit Teacher to foster community engagement. This session is about more than just understanding AI; it's about arming our teens with the wisdom to use these tools judiciously, ensuring they become informed contributors to the world around them.

Grab your FREE copy of our 'Raising Questioners' guide with three activities and a list of suggested ("cool") topic starters to get those conversations flowing!


Links to further study:
The Foundation for Critical Thinking
Coursera
Khan Academy

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Challenge your Mind, change the World. We are running a five-part series on AI and education and how it potentially can affect your teenager. Today we are on episode three. We are looking at the art of asking questions in our AI world. In today's episode, we delve into a skill that is both timeless and increasingly crucial in our digital age it's the art of asking the right questions as we navigate a world where artificial intelligence is becoming more pervasive. The ability to question effectively is not just an academic skill. It's a vital tool for critical thinking and for personal growth. So, parents, if you have got a teenager at home, listen up, because today the rise of AI brings a mix of optimism and concern, especially when it comes to teenagers' development In educational settings.

Speaker 1:

Ai technologies can offer personalized learning experiences and instant access to a vast pool of information. It's scary how much information is at their fingertips without filter, without any kind of gatekeeping or inability for it to be assessed critically. So, while AI technologies can offer personalized learning experiences, the same technology also presents challenges. There is the risk of over-reliance, which might deter deep thinking and problem-solving skills amongst our beautiful students, and, moreover, the content delivered by AI might be biased or incomplete, potentially shaping young minds in unforeseen ways. And who out there has had this worry at home? Nod your head if you're listening to this and you have had the same concerns by the end of our discussion today. Our aim is for you, as wonderful parents, to feel more equipped to guide your teenagers in becoming discerning questioners. We want them to become individuals who can navigate the flood of information that AI offers with skepticism and intellectual curiosity. Sounds impossible. I don't think so. It's attainable, it's achievable and it's a lot easier than you think. For us to be able to guide our beautiful teenagers in this world of AI, this new frontier of AI, really and the way that we're going to do it is through teaching them to ask the right questions. Questions challenge the responses from AI and provide you with practical exercises to strengthen your teenager's questioning prowess. Are you ready? All right, let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

I thought we would start today's podcast with looking at the power of questions, and there's three parts to this podcast that I want to dive into. The first part is the power of questions, and then I want to move into questioning the AI in part two and then in part three, I really want to look at some practical exercises. Let's look at the power of questions to start, and I want to look at the foundational role that questioning plays in education and personal development. Questions are the starting point for everything that we teach. When it comes to scaffolding new content, new ideas and new subject matter for our teenagers in class and in life, we always start with questioning, always start with questioning. We always start with assessing what they know, asking them what they know about a topic and then, from there, drilling down and defining what they don't know.

Speaker 1:

Questions are the engine of intellectual curiosity, if you like, and they are a key tool in the pursuit of knowledge. So we need to really honour that idea and explain and look at the importance of asking questions and not just any questions, the right kind of questions. Asking questions is critical for intellectual growth because it encourages individuals to think deeply rather than to accept information at face value. That one word, why and it can drive us nuts as parents. I know it can. I've got two boys and they are forever asking me why, why this, why that? And it takes a lot of patience sometimes to honour those why questions and respond to them in a way that children can walk away from a conversation and have a good, comprehensive knowledge of the question that they asked.

Speaker 1:

But we do need to encourage our children to be asking questions all the time, because by asking questions is how you can grow your understanding and your appreciation of the world around you. It can grow your empathy for why people are different or why not everybody is the same, why that person dresses that way and you're dressing that way, or why some people have more than others, or why some people have less than others, or why some countries are fighting with each other, or why some countries are progressing well with climate change and why other countries aren't, or why this political situation is happening. In this area and this political situation, you can see how, why questions can start at the very basic and then they can deepen and broaden into some quite complex ideas that shape the world around us. So by encouraging our children to be constantly asking questions, especially why questions, it means that they're going beyond just accepting information at face value, so that in turn promotes problem-solving skills, because we're challenging learners, we're challenging our students, we're challenging our children to seek out the causes, the effects and the underlying principles, rather than just simply memorizing facts as robots, almost robotically, and freedom of thought and freedom of expression. All of these creative and critical aspects to human thought are not going to go away with the introduction of AI and, if anything, they're going to become more crucial and more important to preserve and to encourage and to teach by asking questions. It stimulates critical thinking, which is essential for evaluating different viewpoints and making informed decisions, is essential for evaluating different viewpoints and making informed decisions, and this skill is becoming increasingly important as teenagers begin to navigate more complex social, academic and personal landscapes.

Speaker 1:

The world that they're growing up in now is so completely different to the world that you or I, as parents and as teachers or educators, grew up in and the types of things that our teenagers nowadays have to face or have to overcome or have to navigate their way through. We never had growing up and I think social media for one is a huge element in their own teenage development that they have to navigate through and make decisions on about what to post, what not to post, what to comment on, what not to comment on, what type of comments to post, cyberbullying, cyber harassment it just goes on and on and on, and we never had to deal with that growing up. So our teenagers nowadays are living in a highly complex world comparatively to what we were growing up in, and we therefore need to equip them with a toolkit a mental toolkit, really on how to work their way through all of these situations. All of these situations, the access to information, the fact that they are being exposed more to images and quite senior levels of information at younger ages, and there's no way that that's going to slow down. They've got tablets, they've got iPads, they've got phones, we've got TVs now that have so many different apps on it for so many different documentaries and TV shows and movies, and everything is at their fingertips.

Speaker 1:

Critical thinking is really important because it's the one gateway or it's the gatekeeper, if you like that will pause and stop them in their tracks before they make a decision, to really evaluate whether or not it's the right decision to make, and questioning helps with that. Questioning drives curiosity, it drives learning and it drives understanding. Questions ignite curiosity by opening new lines of inquiry and making learning an active process. When teenagers ask questions, they are essentially taking control of their learning journey and they're steering it towards areas that interest them, are interested in because from that comes motivation. And then it's learning through inquiry, it's learning through going and finding out the information around that topic and researching and talking to experts in that field and really have that student focused. And that is all asking questions and it's all student-led, which is fabulous. The students are in charge of coming up with the right questions to ask in order to drive their learning. Questions also lead to a deeper understanding by not just asking what, but why and how, and we've talked about the why questions previously, but these types of questions encourage students to connect concepts and apply knowledge in new contexts, which is vital for their long-term retention and their comprehension of the topic at hand. When students are looking at the why and the how remember it's the old Bloom's taxonomy coming into play here the higher order thinking, the why questions then we know that our students are well on the way to developing those critical thinking skills, which is what they're going to need, especially in those final years of high school education and then beyond.

Speaker 1:

How do we encourage question asking with our teenagers, especially if our teens are not that great at opening up to us as adults or really taking the time to reflect on the world or to reflect on situations at hand? Or perhaps they're not the greatest talkers at home, because we know that that's what teenagers are like, and so the way that we can encourage question asking is relating it to everyday experiences for them. Bring in examples relevant to beautiful teenagers' daily lives. And in the classroom we can do it within class discussions, for example. As educators, I would quite often ask questions in class to gain richer discussions and to create a more engaging learning environment. I would come up with topical questions that might be slightly controversial to really start a classroom debate, a respectful classroom debate, but it was a great way to just get the room talking and to get people looking and realising that not everybody has the same opinion. And when I say controversial topics, just things like should school uniforms be compulsory? In schools that I was teaching at, they all had school uniforms. So of course, it was quite a strong opinion topic for students as to whether or not they should be wearing school uniforms, as to whether or not they should be wearing school uniforms. You can take any topical question and use it as a warmer, as an opening for your class if you're an educator listening to this, or if you're at home, if you're a parent, and you can use it at the dinner table when everyone is sitting down for dinner or perhaps in the car driving somewhere. Start looking at ways that you can introduce or encourage question asking with your children and see what different sides of a topic come through and then honour those sides of the topic, listen to them and evaluate them.

Speaker 1:

Another way that we can encourage question asking with our teens is using technology. Well, while they are using technology, so technology often provides quick answers, as we know, but I think by encouraging teenagers to question the accuracy and the sources of these answers can lead to some really good discussions too. So this can be tied to using search engines for school projects. So Google, for example, and you look at a search engine like Google and by pointing out to your team that this is a multi-billion dollar company that obviously has a business to run and it's got money to make, and that there are websites and brands out there that are competing for keywords and they are paying to be at the top of the search rankings. When you are googling something and you'll see websites coming up at the very, very top and it says sponsored. Well, that's because they're paid to be at the top there, not necessarily because they are the best go-to source for what you are looking for. And also, I don't know if you've ever found this, but when you're Googling something and then you'll get related websites that come up on the search page and it might not actually have anything to do with what you're looking for, but you can end up going down a real rabbit hole by clicking on these and suddenly you're off on a different topical together, and that can be confusing to navigate.

Speaker 1:

If you are a young teenager trying to work out how to research or how to look at different sources critically, it's really important that we point that out to them when they are using technology and also when they're consuming media. So, with the vast amounts of content available now and we talked about it before with all the apps on TV, netflix and Disney and on the iPads and tablets, it's crucial that teenagers learn to question the reliability and the bias of some of the information that they consume, whether it's the news articles, social media or even advertisements. News, particularly, can be a tricky minefield for our teens to navigate through, because you will have right-wing and left-wing leaning media outlets and newspapers and online publications, and this can come through even on social media, through Facebook or whatever it is, because obviously the algorithms exist and once you start looking at one article, then the algorithm will kick into place and it will just start bringing up more of the same type. And once you start looking at one article, then the algorithm will kick into place and it will just start bringing up more of the same type of article that you've looked at. So you're not going to get a very level playing field or a very non-biased playing field when you are looking at things online, because that's not what Google or Facebook are interested in. They just want to keep showing you more of what they think you are looking for. Whether or not that's biased, they don't really care. So we have to be so careful with our teens and explain that to them, and through that will come questioning and you will be asking your teens questions about how they can decipher what is fact and what is bias and what is accurate and what is not. I would encourage you to foster an environment where asking questions is valued in your home, and I think that if we prompt our teenagers with questions that require more than yes, no answers so really looking at the why and the how questions we are encouraging them to think critically and articulate their thoughts and their opinions more fully.

Speaker 1:

A practical tip I would encourage our teenagers to keep a question journal where they can write down questions that arise from everyday observations and interactions, which can later be researched and discussed as a family, and you can make it fun. In the old days we used to do sticker charts for behavior. Well, perhaps this can be some sort of a reward system where, if we are encouraging our teens to keep a journal of questions and then throughout the week they're adding to that, we can look at that at the end of the week and there's an incentive there for them to be able to do that. And I think it brings families closer together when they can discuss and analyze and talk freely with each other. And, at the end of the day, communication is one of the things that we really need to work on with teens, because they do have a tendency to bottle things in and, especially as a teacher in class, you've really got to try and draw out the information sometimes out the information sometimes. So by encouraging them to have something like a question journal, we're actually equipping them to create a healthy mindset, not just in the classroom, but also to be able to look at life in a more evaluative way.

Speaker 1:

From here we move into questioning the AI. So we've talked about the importance of questioning and we've talked about how we can encourage our teenagers to develop those critical questioning habits, and the reasons why and how it's important to have those skills, those questioning skills. Now we need to turn our attention to questioning the AI in particular. Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, surrounds us, for short surrounds us. It's deeply embedded in many tools that teenagers use every day, from algorithms that determine what they see on social media, as we mentioned, to search engines that answer their queries, like Google, and even educational software that aids in learning. Ai's influence is pervasive and it is here to stay.

Speaker 1:

While AI can be incredibly helpful, it's crucial to remember that it's just a tool and it's reliant on the data fed into it and the programming behind it. And this is what I was talking about before, with making sure that your team knows and understands, when they are using an AI website or an app. Who is the manufacturer of this AI tool and what is it that they want to achieve by selling it to you or promoting it or having you use their software? What is the bias? Is there bias there? What are they going to get out of this achievement, or this agreement, this transaction, if you like. We have to be really mindful of that. We need to understand the limitations and the biases of AI. It's not the be all and end all. It's not the answer to everybody's problems. It's not going to suddenly do all the work for a teenager. Get them through high school, get them into the ivy league colleges, and your teens won't have to lift a finger. It's really important for teens to recognize that ai systems have limitations and they have bias which can affect the information that they provide.

Speaker 1:

There's three things to look at with AI there's accuracy, there's bias and then there's depth. So firstly, with accuracy, we need to stress the need for critical examination of AI responses in the software that our teens are using, whether they're using it to write an essay or they're using it for a research assignment. We need to ask whether the information provided by AI is, and we need to highlight how outdated or poorly sourced data can lead AI to present incorrect or misleading answers. The update yet, or they are perhaps not understanding exactly what the specific task is, that you are feeding it and if you are creating a assignment for school or if your teen is creating a research report or writing an essay and the teacher's really looking for something like those critical thinking skills seen in the essay and that's the teenager's ability to look at something and provide their own opinions on it, then AI is only going to get them so far. It's not going to completely solve the problem. For a teen, that can lead to incorrect or misleading answers. We need to make sure that we are really really clearly explaining to our teens the accuracy of the apps that they're using. Have a chat with your teenagers. Find out what type of software they're using for their study. Really look at if that's the best path forward for them, for your teen.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is bias. Ai systems often reflect the bias presented in their training data. Often reflect the bias presented in their training data. This can be bias relating to race, gender, culture or even socioeconomic status. Teens should question whether the information has an inherent bias or if it's presenting a balanced perspective. Who is the creator of this information? Who is the company behind it, or is it showing both sides of a perspective? So bias is really important to look for. And then the third element in understanding the limitations of AI is depth. Ai might often provide quick, surface level information, but it lacks depth. You'll get a very generalized view of something but you won't get the very in-depth, nitty-gritty examples and details that is often needed for critical examinations or critical thinking.

Speaker 1:

We need to challenge our children. We need to challenge our teens to consider whether AI is offering a thorough explanation of what it is that your teenager is using it for, or is it just a brief overview? So we need to be careful that when our teens go into their rooms to do their homework and they have to do a full study report or an essay, they don't come out after 20 minutes and say they're done, because they've fed the topic into an AI website. It's printed out a very general overview of the topic and they think great, I've got 600 words here, or I've got a thousand words, I'm done. Words here, or I've got a thousand words, I'm done.

Speaker 1:

We need to encourage our children to seek deeper understanding, especially on complex subjects when they're using this software, because quantity doesn't necessarily mean quality. To give you some real examples of AI misinterpretation, of AI misinterpretation A virtual assistant might misinterpret a question about the Cold War as about banning cold weather conditions, so the AI in this scenario has missed the context of the Cold War. They have interpreted it literally. Another example could be where a social media algorithm promotes certain types of content more frequently than others and we've talked about this previously in the podcast and this can skew a teenager's perception of what is popular or accepted, and it therefore will grow a bias within your teen. So we need to make sure that teens are exposed to balanced perspectives on information. And a third example could be an educational app that provides a summary of scientific concepts without going into the necessary detail required to fully understand complex theories or experiments, and so, therefore, it's pointing out the lack of depth, and our teens won't even realize that they are showing a lack of depth because they are so reliant on these apps that they think they've covered all bases. They don't have to think about it, they're done, their project is done, their homework is done.

Speaker 1:

So how can we counteract this? We can with encouraging critical questioning. Encouraging critical questioning. We can encourage our teenagers and we can encourage ourselves as parents and educators, to discuss these examples with our teens and urge them to ask critical questions about the AI tools they are using. And here are three questions for you to ask your teen when they're using an AI app or website. What is the source of this information? That's the first question. Second question is why might this answer be biased? And the third question is what isn't this AI telling me? I'll say those questions again what is the source of this information? Why might this answer be biased, and what isn't this AI telling me? So by regularly engaging in such questioning, teenagers can develop a more critical approach to this technology that they interact with, and it therefore fosters better awareness and a smarter use of AI.

Speaker 1:

Let's move into part three of this podcast, the importance of actively practicing questioning skills we've talked about. I wanted to give you some exercises that are designed to help you guide your teens in becoming more critical and thoughtful in their questioning, whether interacting with AI or engaging in everyday discussions. The first exercise and there are three exercises here, so the first one is identifying questions. The objective of this activity is to encourage you to help your teens think more deeply about the subjects that they discuss, and the way that you can do this is recall a recent conversation or a topic your teen showed interest in. Have a think it could be something from a school project, it could be a news item, or it could be a personal hobby. My son is mad about learning the keyboard at the moment, so that's all we talk about at home. So have a think about a recent conversation or topic that your teen was interested in.

Speaker 1:

Have a think about a recent conversation or topic that your teen was interested in, and then list several questions that you might ask your teen to probe deeper into the topic, and these could include a mix of what questions? So the factual questions, the why, questions for reasoning and how questions. So, for example, if the topic was climate change, questions could range from what are the main causes of climate change? That's a what effect your question to, why is it important to address climate change now and how can we reduce our carbon footprint. By sharing these questions with our teens and discussing their responses, we can really get an idea of the depth and the thoughtfulness of the conversation that follows. That would be my first recommendation. Let's start identifying questions that we can ask our teens.

Speaker 1:

Second activity was all about evaluating AI responses, so this is to teach our teens to critically assess the information provided by AI, and so what you can do as a parent at home is find an AI tool that your teen uses or that you as a family might use, such as a voice assistant or a chat bot, as a family might use, such as a voice assistant or a chatbot to ask questions about a common high school subject like biology or history or English, seeing as I'm an English teacher and ask a series of questions to this AI piece of software and write down its responses. So questions should vary in complexity and be really specific to test the AI's capability. So, once you've written down your questions to ask the AI and you've collected the responses, analyze them for the following, and there's three things. Remember that we talked about the accuracy, the bias and the depth. So analyze the AI's response to your questions with accuracy. Are the responses factually correct? Look for the bias Do the responses seem to favor a particular viewpoint? And then look at how deep the AI response goes. Are the answers detailed enough or do they remain superficial? So, for an example, questioning an AI about the causes of World War II and then evaluate the completeness of historical context provided, and you might find that you will get a very general overview from the AI and then you will need to prompt it by asking more specific questions. So, once again, that is encouraging your teen and it's teaching your teen that they need to ask more questions to get deeper understanding.

Speaker 1:

So the third exercise and this is the last one I promise is the question formulation technique. I'd like to introduce to you a structured method to develop more effective questioning strategies. It's a systematic approach to developing questions and it's called the question formulation technique, or QFT for short. What you could do with your teen is present a statement or a topic so, for example, renewable energy sources are essential for sustainable development and then see if you can produce as many questions as you can about the statement without stopping to discuss or revise them. So this is almost a bit like a game, if you like. And then, once you have brainstormed and written down as many questions as you can about the statement, refine the questions by opening closed ones and closing open ones. I'll say that again refine the questions by opening closed questions, so the yes or no questions. Rewrite them as open questions, using why or how, and close the open ones, so the open questions are the why or the how questions. Turn them into yes or no, factual ones, and then consider the impact of each format and then, from there, prioritize the questions based on their potential to provoke critical thinking and deeper inquiry. It's quite an in-depth exercise.

Speaker 1:

If you like, I will put the instructions for this QFT the question formulation technique on the podcast website. I'll put the link there for it as a free download so that you can have a bit of fun with this Play around. I'll give you some example topics or I'll give you some example statements or topics. That will be fun, that will engage your teen, and then, once you've had a go playing this and you've modelled it for your teen and I've had a go playing this, reflect on how the different types of questions might lead to richer and more varied exploration of the topic. Regular practice of these exercises can significantly enhance the questioning capabilities for both ourselves and our teens. If we encourage continued practice, then I would love to hear your feedback on how you went with these exercises and the outcomes. It can be fun.

Speaker 1:

It's great to step out from beyond the classroom and talk to them about some of these topics, as they're getting older, that we can really understand. Well, they can really begin to understand now and have an opinion on, and we can encourage them to have opinions. Opinions are great. It's how we communicate. Opinions is the key part of critical thinking and making sure that we are looking at different aspects of a topic of questioning as a fundamental skill that supports critical thinking and intellectual development. We need to make sure that this skill is especially crucial in the digital age, where AI and technology are constantly present and are constantly presenting information that we have to scrutinize and evaluate. We need to make sure that our teens are developing questioning skills that can help them not just in academic settings, but in everyday life, and we are supporting and aiding them in becoming more thoughtful, inquisitive and informed individuals.

Speaker 1:

I think the value of practicing these questioning skills that we've just talked about alongside our children is a great way to show modeling or scaffolding of how, as adults, we use critical thinking and by making this a regular part of our interactions, whether we're discussing the daily news or viewing a movie or even navigating social media. To foster a habit of critical analysis and deeper understanding is so important, and I think that if we are creating a home environment that values and rewards curiosity and skepticism, these are vital for navigating a world rich with information yet fraught with misinformation. I think that, if you are interested in this topic, there's a website for the people that are more interested in online information called criticalthinkingorg, which provides tools and techniques for developing critical thinking skills, and then there are online courses from platforms like Coursera or Khan Academy that focus on digital literacy and AI fundamentals. I will link all those in the show notes, too, if you're interested in learning more, going further with this, but I would ask you to engage with the podcast.

Speaker 1:

If you have enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to engage with the podcast by sharing your experiences or the questions you have developed with your teens.

Speaker 1:

I'd love to hear what you come up with. I would love for you to tag any of these on social media with the hashtag Classic Lit Teacher, and then we can get a community discussion going, or submit your stories and questions through the email that we've got, which is help, at classicliteratureteachercom. I would love for you to give us some feedback on the episode as well. Give us a rating on Apple or whatever the platform is that you're listening to this on, and I would love to know what worked for you, what didn't work for you and what you would like to learn more about in future episodes. So thank you for being with us on this very comprehensive episode today. Thank you for your time and I hope that this episode has provided you with some valuable insights and tools, and remember that the power of questioning and cultivating an informed and critically thinking generation is what we are all about here at the Classic Literature Teacher. Challenge your mind, change the world. Until next time, my friends, keep thinking critically.

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