Questions at the Heart of Learning

At the heart of learning are the questions to which we do not yet know the answers and the journey to the questions we have not yet asked. Such simple truths and yet understanding this can have fundamental consequences for our approach to learning and growth are best unlocked by great questions. We learn via the questions that we ask and we expand our collective understanding of the worlds in which we live through the questions that we discover. Human knowledge is a historic journey of wonderings that have sparked imaginations and a desire to understand. If there is one thing that separates humans from other species it is our deep seated desire to understand why things are the way that they are; our natural curiosity coupled with the capacity and tools to seek answers. - Read More


Curiosity as the edge of knowledge phenomenon that drives learning

We are driven by curiosity. It is an innately human quality that has driven us to explore, ask questions, investigate, wonder why and search for a deeper understanding. In a very fundamental way curiosity is the driver of all self-directed learning. It is our desire to find out more, unlock new knowledge and answer our questions (big ones and little ones) that compels us to learn. - Read More


The Questions That Matter Most

As teachers we face numerous challenges as we manage our duties and strive to provide our students with the best opportunities to learn and realise their potential within a safe and supportive environment. We develop philosophies of learning, vision and mission statements; we plan programmes of learning, engage with professional development, communicate with parents and community members and through reflection and assessment refine our processes. We strive to meet the needs of individual learners in every aspect of their development and provide them with the pastoral care they require. All of this means our days are busy but also hopefully rewarding, the danger though is that sometimes in these busy days the little details that can make the biggest impact are lost or taken for granted. Take questioning as an example of a piece of our teaching that we do every day but that can require a subtlety of detail that can be skipped within a busy lesson. - Read More


What Questions Shall we Ask?

Using a combination of Habits of Mind, Dimensions of Learning and making Thinking Visible a small groups of teachers that I have the privilege of working with offered a set of questions and strategies to promote creative thinking. They can be used as a toolkit to guide students towards asking the right type of questions and when linked to areas of exploration that the students are passionate about offer the potential to generate amazing new ideas. - Read More


Questions that Encourage Deeper Thinking

What makes you say that?’ is a question I use often, so much so that after a while my class predict it is coming and provide the answer automatically. But in some settings it is not the right question and in others it doesn’t take the conversation in the right direction. Here are some alternatives.


“What if” questions are the way to the solution

When you begin to ask “What if...?” questions you open the door to a fresh perspective. It is a particular framing of a question that invites creativity and hints at a shift in the status quo. - Read More


Helping students to become problem finders

For students engaging in creative personalised learning projects such as a ‘Genius Hour’ or ‘Personal Passion project it can often be difficult for them to uncover the right project. Students have become so reliant upon their teachers to pose them problems that when they are given the option to explore one of their own design they don’t know where to start. This is indeed a significant challenge as we know that our students will enter a workforce and world of learning beyond school where they must be active problem finders. How then might we provide the support they require without removing the opportunity for truly personalised exploration. - Explore scaffolds for BIG Questions


Asking Why and Why and Why

As children, we ask “Why?” a lot. It is a part of childhood, that special time when the many forces acting upon our cognitive development converge around a singular desire to ask “Why”. It becomes the central focus of our conversational style, an incessant exclamation into the void which tests the patience of any nearby adult. - The strategy of Asking Five (or more) Whys can be an ideal strategy for enriching learning. - Read More


More than knowing the right answer

Being wise is about so much more than knowing the right answer. Indeed, it can be argued that knowing the right answer can be an obstacle to learning and understanding. As we move further into times where knowledge is ubiquitous and yet truth is increasingly hard to find, merely knowing the right answer can be an impediment. - Questions are a vital next step. - Read More


5 TOP STRATEGIES:

 

  1. Use the six starters - Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

  2. Think of questions and then search for ways of finding the answers

  3. Keep a list of good questions you think of or encounter

  4. Have a questioning attitude, enjoy questions, have fun with them, see them as steps on a journey to knowledge

  5. Use 'Thinking Routines' that allow you to find and explore great questions

 

5 QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT YOUR THINKING:

  1. What makes you ask that? 

  2. What is interesting about this question? Who is it interesting for?

  3. What if . . .?

  4. Was finding the answer too easy? Did you ask the wrong question or did you not understand the question? Is there a bigger question you have missed?

  5. What do you think the answer will look like, sound like, feel like? How will you know you have the answer?


 Thinking Routines For Questioning and Posing Problems

  1. Question Starts - Use this strategy to generate good questions and begin to identify and explore those most important to a topic

    1. Brainstorm a list of 12 questions or more about your topic. Use these question starters to help you:

      1. Why...?

      2. How would it be different if...?

      3. What are the reasons...?

      4. Suppose that...?

      5. What if...?

      6. What if we knew...?

      7. What is the purpose of...?

      8. What would change if...?

    2. Review the questions and mark those you find most interesting, share with a friend and discuss 'what makes it an interesting question?'. Reflect on the process and explore ways to investigate your questions.

  2. Creative Questions - A good routine for developing questions and for training your mind to think differently about the type of questions that need to be asked. Use it to generate creative questions to explore by following these steps:

    1. Pick an everyday object or topic and brainstorm a list of questions about it. Transform some of these questions in imaginative questions such as:

      • What would it be like if . . .

      • How would it be different if . . .

      • Suppose that . . .

      • What would change if . . .

      • How would it look different if . . .

    2. Select a question to imaginatively explore. Write a story, draw a picture, invent a scenario, conduct a thought experiment or dramatise a scenario

    3. Reflect on your thinking and the new ideas you have generated. Develop those that seem most useful.

  3. Claim, Support, Question - Use this routine to identify the truth of claims you or others make. Take a claim about the topic and identify support for it; What is it relying on for truth? Ask questions about your claim that explore what isn't explained, what new issues does the claim raise? Useful to use with a friend asking the questions.

  4. 5 Whys - This model of asking 'Why?' five times allows you to dig deeper into a problem. Begin by asking a 'Why' question. Listen to the answer from others or from your self, then ask a 'Why' question that digs deeper into the answer provided. Repeat this process so that you have asked 5 'Why' questions each revealing more information and each at a deeper level of understanding. 

  5. What makes you say that? - A powerful question for encouraging deeper thinking and one that works best when students learn that this question is not an attack on their thinking but is aimed at revealing more detail. Here is a list of similar Questions that Encourage Deeper Thinking.

    1. What makes you say that?

    2. What makes you think that?

    3. How do you know that?

    4. What makes you value that?

    5. What has changed about your thinking?

    6. What changed you mind?

    7. What questions does that raise?

    8. What question would a sceptic ask?

    9. What evidence do you have?

    10. What is the weak point in your argument?

    11. Who would agree with you? - Who would disagree with you?

    12. What do you still need to know?

    13. What else?

    14. What is missing?

    15. Where do you go from here?

    16. What part of the problem is left?

    17. What are you certain about? Why?

    18. What do you understand least?

    19. Can you summarise what X said?

    20. Is Y’s summary accurate, if not, what is inaccurate?