Questions have long been used as a teaching tool by teachers and preceptors to assess students' knowledge, promote comprehension, and stimulate critical thinking. Well-crafted questions lead to new insights, generate discussion, and promote the comprehensive exploration of subject matter. Poorly constructed questions can stifle learning by creating confusion, intimidating students, and limiting creative thinking. Teachers most often ask lower-order, convergent questions that rely on students' factual recall of prior knowledge rather than asking higher-order, divergent questions that promote deep thinking, requiring students to analyze and evaluate concepts. This review summarizes the taxonomy of questions, provides strategies for formulating effective questions, and explores practical considerations to enhance student engagement and promote critical thinking. These concepts can be applied in the classroom and in experiential learning environments.Keywords: questioning, critical thinking, pedagogy, effective teaching, teaching tool INTRODUCTIONUsing questions to teach is an age-old practice and has been a cornerstone of education for centuries. 1,2 Questions are often used to stimulate the recall of prior knowledge, promote comprehension, and build critical-thinking skills. Teachers ask questions to help students uncover what has been learned, to comprehensively explore the subject matter, and to generate discussion and peerto-peer interaction. Student-initiated questions increase higher-order learning by requiring them to analyze information, connect seemingly disparate concepts, and articulate their thoughts. 3 Indeed, questions are ubiquitous, but are the right kinds of questions -ones that promote learning, not recall -asked at the appropriate time? 4 Poor questions can stifle learning by creating confusion, intimidating students, and limiting creative thinking. 5 Effective questions asked in a psychologically safe learning environment support student learning by probing for understanding, encouraging creativity, stimulating critical thinking, and enhancing confidence. 6 The art of asking the right questions at the appropriate time is not innate. 7 Bloom's taxonomy of learning categorizes cognitive levels into several domains. 8 Questions that elicit responses in the knowledge, comprehension, and application domains are frequently considered lower-order questions, while questions in the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation domains are considered higherorder questions. 9 Higher-order questions elicit deeper and critical thinking; therefore, teachers are encouraged to ask questions in these domains (Table 1). 2,[10][11][12] This does not mean that lower-order questions should not be asked. It is appropriate to ask questions to address all cognitive domains as long as the desired learning outcome is kept in mind and a good mix of questions is used during each teaching session. 2 Given that the learning objectives in most courses in graduate and professional degree programs are often intended to stimulate high ord...

In the twenty-first century, Americans have put more of their lives online while the US government has expanded its mass surveillance apparatus. Interest in anonymity-granting technologies like The Onion Router (Tor) has grown substantially as citizens seek to protect their privacy. However, this same technology can be used to engage in illegal activity on the dark web. This study examines how interest in the dark web, public attention to the 2013 Snowden revelations, and metro-area political ideology are associated with public interest in Tor. We link data from multiple sources including Google Trends, the American Community Survey, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study for the forty-nine largest US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) from 2006–2015 (n=490). Broadly, we find that metro areas with liberal citizen ideology and greater interest in the dark web were more likely to search for Tor. When controlling for the level of interest in the dark web, the Snowden revelations of 2013 had no significant impact on interest in Tor. These findings suggest that the lure of the dark web and left-leaning ideological contexts offer stronger explanations for interest in anonymity-granting technology than the public attention brought to mass surveillance by the Snowden revelations.

In the 21st century, Americans have put more of their lives online, while the U.S. government has expanded its mass surveillance apparatus. Interest in anonymity-granting technologies like the The Onion Router (Tor) has grown substantially as citizens seek to protect their privacy. However, this same technology can be used to engage in illegal activity on the Dark Web. This study examines how interest in the Dark Web, public attention to the 2013 Snowden revelations, and metro area political ideology affect public interest in Tor. We link data from multiple sources including Google Trends, the American Community Survey, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study for the 49 largest U.S. MSAs from 2006-2015 (n=490). Broadly, we find that metro areas with liberal citizen ideology and greater interest in the Dark Web were more likely to search for Tor. When controlling for the level of interest in the Dark Web, the Snowden revelations of 2013 had no significant impact on interest in Tor. These findings tend to suggest that the lure of the Dark Web and left-leaning ideological contexts offer stronger explanations for interest in anonymity-granting technology than the public attention brought to mass surveillance by the Snowden revelations.