"The wise man doesn't give the right
answers,
he asks the right questions"
Claude Levi-Srauss
As a young student, as
far back as the third grade, I can remember the butterflies and my barely
controlled enthusiasm building up inside of me as the teacher prepared to ask
for students to voice their opinion, to answer, or ask questions. My desire to participate
was so strong that it took everything in my power to keep my hand from shooting
up in the air while the silent voice in my head screamed, “Pick me, pick me.” I
wanted to be part of the action, I wanted to show interest, I wanted to
participate and as the excitement to do so would build, it would just as
quickly dissolve. Why you may ask? I struggled to overcome my fear of asking
the dreaded “stupid” question. Not only was I afraid of making a fool of
myself, but even though my will to participate was strong, I realized that,
more importantly, I had no idea what to say, what to ask, or how to contribute.
More often than not I would let other students take the lead, and more often
than not I would think, “I could have done that, I could have asked or answered
that question.
As I got older I began
to realize that it wasn’t that I was afraid to speak out, as much as it was not
knowing what to ask and how to ask it.
As a teacher I don’t
want to be standing in front of students who are feeling the way I felt, so
willing to participate without the skills to do so. I think it is important for
teachers to educate students on
Here is an example where
an English teacher has used the class to make up a questions board. Doing this
not only allows the class to know that it is important to ask questions, but
they are also able to come up with types of questions that they can ask.
In the April 2013
edition of Scholastic Education Teaching Tip of the month, Sue Jackson
discusses how we can teach students to ask their own critical inquiry
questions. First, we simplify the task by identifying the two types of wonders
that a student can ask…
Different Kinds of Wonders
|
|
Heart Wonders
|
Research Wonders
|
-
Questions you can answer with your heart and mind
- ex. What makes a best friend a best friend? |
-
Questions that you can look up in books, magazines, on the computer, or by
observing
- ex. What goes on under an ant pile? |
Specifically more with
older students, it is important to spend time teaching them the different kinds
of questions to show that different questions have different purposes and are
not created equally (Jackson, 2013). The chart below would be a helpful way to
outline the different kinds of questions and their purposes.
Kinds of Questions
| ||
Factual Retrieval
|
Personal Preference
|
Critical Inquiry
|
Fact Questions
|
Imagine Questions
|
Interpretive questions
|
- have only one correct answer
- provide an understanding of the details of a topic - good for 'mini-inquiries' |
- ask for some kind of opinion, belief or point of view- no wrong answers
- good for leading discussions - rarely make for good inquiry-based projects because internally focused |
- have more than one answer but must be supported with evidence - effective for starting class discussions and for stimulating oral and written tasks - good for inquiry-based learning
|
Teachers can easily provide opportunities for
students to practice creating and responding to the various types of questions.
While learning questioning techniques, this is also a way for teachers to
direct students’ focus and efforts on important issues related to their
community, current events and important issues taking place in the world around
them.
At the end of Jackson’s article there is a helpful activity that is
useful to any grade level and helps them refine questions for inquiry based
learning. By definition, inquiry based
learning is a classroom that
encourages intellectual engagement and the ability to foster deep understanding
through the development of hands-on, minds-on and ‘research based disposition’
towards teaching an learning (Jackson, 2013). In other words, teacher and
students work collaboratively to tackle real-world questions and issues, while
also developing their own questions, research and communication skills for
everyday life.
In school we have always been taught how
important it is to question everything but you’re never really taught how. Once students understand the
types of questions and how to formulate the appropriate question, whether they
are looking to challenge opinion or find facts, they can then begin
to steer their own learning environment towards matters of the heart, the ‘true’
questions they have about things they really care about. The
beautiful thing is, it is a positive cycle, because the more they understand
and feel comfortable with questioning techniques, the more questions they will
ask, and the more a student participates, the more invested they become in
their own learning.
References
Jackson, S. (2013). Helping Students Develop the
Ability to Ask Good Questions.
Stephenson, N. Introduction to Inquiry Based
Learning. Retrieved from
