Quality Question Metrics

If I drive 60 miles per hour, my journey will take 4 hours. How long will my journey take if I drive 80 miles per hour?

Paulina volunteered, "I did sixty divided by eighty, that equals point seven five, or three-fourths. So, it would take three hours."

When I asked Paulina why she divided 60 by 80, or what the quotient 0.75 meant, she struggled to tell me her reason. Nor could she explain how she deduced that "three-fourths... so, it would take three hours."

We have to keep asking why-why-why all the time. Our job is to help students ask better questions. One of my question quality metrics that gets high marks is if a student can ask a question that causes the class to say Oh-shit-I-did-not-think-of-that!