Asking Students to Question

In my last post, I talked about how thoughtful use of teacher questions can really help to liven up a classroom. Another, maybe even better, strategic choice is to get students to ask the questions.

If you go this route, the risk of failure is a little higher. As we know, it’s not so easy to write great questions, so this is actually a big ask for students. Freezing up is a common response, or maybe a small list with not-so-relevant questions, or even some good contributions but only by a very few voices.

What we need is a catalyst and some unpacking of the question-generating process to help students succeed. One great structured method I’ve found to be highly useful with students is the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), which has an organized brainstorming format with a few simple but powerful steps that help student teams formulate questions and then reflect on their quality and usefulness for inquiry. Through this work, students work collaboratively to identify and generate both open-ended and closed-ended questions. The process is simple and easy to adapt for any subject area and grade level. To visualize how QFT can work in a science classroom, check out this great 9^th grade physics class video example.

Even with a question-generating strategy like QFT, student engagement is not guaranteed. You need some kind of inspiration to engage student interest and kick-start their thinking. It doesn’t have to be complex; it can just be a new look at some object or idea that they would normally take for granted, or a visual or mental puzzle. Starting out with an intriguing story or phenomenon related to the concept(s) at hand is a great way to inspire student questions. So great, in fact, that folks like the experts at Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) and of course the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) recommend starting every unit with an “anchoring phenomenon.” The phenomenon inspires student curiosity and questions, which can be used to drive inquiry and learning as a storyline of science concepts are pursued to develop explanations and pursue answers. There are so many helpful resources on the AST website, especially the suggested routines for encouraging students to express their thinking through scientific discourse and embedded strategies for formative assessment as you are able to hear and see their developing ideas and thoughts on a daily basis.

You might be thinking that redesigning your whole curriculum to fit this structure is really complex work, and you can’t change everything about the way you teach overnight. This is SO TRUE.

But — you can also use phenomena and intriguing stories on a more micro level, to introduce and spark student interest and questions about a concept rather than a unit. For example, I used to start my photosynthesis unit by asking students, “What do plants eat?” (encouraging them to think of examples of large plants, like trees) followed by the story and clues of how scientists figured this out. But now I think it might be more interesting to show them a video like this one, and then let them ask questions using QFT to see what they are curious about. Probably something will come up that will bring us around to the concepts we’re required to learn, but this time the curiosity will originate from the students rather than my script — and the class discourse will be much more engaging.

Resources are starting to become more available so you don’t have to re-invent the wheel – check out the (searchable) cool images and ideas at https://www.ngssphenomena.com/ as well as the work being done by Paul Anderson here: https://thewonderofscience.com/phenomenal. Choose your next concept, or a future less-than-exciting one, and see what ideas might perk your students up and start an interesting conversation in class!

Leveraging questioning and intriguing phenomena by combining them in creative ways can transform a class, making it more interesting for everyone. The more we can step off the stage and ask students to contribute their ideas, questions and wonderings, then introduce our science curriculum as a useful tool in response, the more meaning our science class will have for all concerned. It can seem a little risky, and some days will succeed better than others, but it’s a journey your students will appreciate. It makes every day more interesting and exciting from a teaching perspective as well.