The Art of Asking the Right Question From www.rightquestion.org

What Purpose does asking a question serve? Gather information Understand how a person is thinking Test knowledge Determine how you will be able to teach or support a student

The Decline of the Questioning Skill Questioning seems to peak at about the age of 4. At age 18 only 25% of students are still actively asking questions. From Dan Rothstein DEN VirtCon 10/25/12

If questioning is so important then how do we teach students to be an independent questioner?

The Question Formulation Technique The Right Question Institute The Question Focus The Rules for Producing Questions Producing Questions Categorizing Questions Prioritizing Questions Next Steps Reflection www.rightquestion.org

The Question Focus Should not: Should: Be a question Reveal teacher preference or bias Should: Be clear, brief and sharply focused Provoke or stimulate new lines of thinking

Question Focus Can be used to launch a lesson or unit Can be as a culminating activity (Did we answer all of the questions?) Can be a statement Can be a picture Can be a word or theme

RULES FOR PRODUCING QUESTIONS Ask as many questions as you can Do not stop to answer, judge, or to discuss the questions Write down every question EXACTLY as it is stated Change any statements into question

Asking Questions Practicing ourselves

Choose one QFocus below to write questions about. The Dead Sea Rift Valley On the piece of paper write as many questions as you can in 4 minutes. Don’t stop writing or lift you pencil/pen from the paper.

Categorizing Questions

What kind of questions did you ask about the topic? Closed Questions Open questions One RIGHT answer Yes or no questions True or false questions More than one right answer Detailed answers must be given to answer the question Opinion supported by evidence or data must given to answer the question Mark your closed-ended questions with a “C” Mark your open-ended questions with an “O”

Closed-ended Questions Advantages Disadvantages

Open-ended Questions Advantages Disadvantages

Changing questions Change two of your closed-ended questions into open-ended questions Change two of your open-ended questions into closed-ended questions Why is this a skill we need to have students practice?

Prioritizing Questions

Prioritizing Questions Criteria for prioritizing—set by teacher Example of ways to have students prioritize questions Choose three questions… that most interest you that are more important that will best help you design your research project you want or need to answer first Tip: post the question focus while the students are prioritizing.

Prioritizing Questions Ask students to think about their rationale for choosing the priority questions Example “Why did you choose these three questions as the most important?”

Sharing and reporting out

Sharing Questions you have changed Three Priority Questions Read the original question then the new question Three Priority Questions Reasons for choosing priority questions It is important for students to hear the thinking and reasoning of their classmates in this process.

Next Steps

How to use the questions the students developed Homework assignments Independent Projects Final Reports Research Papers Class Work Revisit the question throughout a unit to see which question have been answered. Lower Elementary –bulletin board Upper Elementary and Secondary—notebooks/journals

Reflection

Reflecting on the Question created To help students continue to develop their own questions the need to learn how to self evaluated they questions they have created. What did you learn? What is the value of learning to ask your own questions? How can you use what you learned?

Want to know more www.rightquestion.org DEN VirtCon Discovery Education Virtual Conference Free Webinar about teaching students how to ask their own questions: http://lanyrd.com/2012/denvirtcon/swppd/ www.rightquestion.org

TEDx Talk by Dan Rothstein http://youtu.be/_JdczdsYBNA