Encouraging Pupils To Ask Effective Questions/Document
Helping pupils develop the ability to raise their own questions
Being able to raise questions to explore a problem or to find an answer is a key learning skill. You can help pupils develop their ability to raise questions by giving them explicit teaching on how to do this.
Model the process: Talk through with pupils the process of formulating questions to ask in order to explore or investigate an idea, thus making explicit your thought processes. For example, a teacher might say:
‘I want to find out the best metal to use for connecting wires in an electrical circuit. I need to think first about what I mean by “best”, because I can’t investigate that to find an answer. The best metal will conduct electricity well and be flexible enough when it’s in a wire form. So maybe the questions I need to ask are: “What are the conductivities of these metals?” and “How easily do they bend?”’
Pupils can be taken step by step through the process of reformulating a question into a form that can be investigated.
Generate questions together: Start with a problem and discuss with pupils what questions are needed to find an answer. For example, a teacher might say:
‘If we want to find out what happened to Thomas à Becket, what questions do we need to ask? Discuss this in pairs; you have 3 minutes and then I will take some of your questions.’
You could then gather a number of questions on the board, grouping types appropriately and discussing which are most likely to provide information and why. This could be followed by discussion on where you would look to find answers.
Use generic questions: Point out that there are many effective generic open- ended questions such as ‘What do you notice?’, ‘What would happen if …?’, ‘Is there a quicker way of doing this?’ You could suggest that pupils use some of these questions to explore an object or event. You could use Bloom’s taxonomy to generate a list. It is best to employ only a few at any one time.
Play 20 questions: Allocate pupils to small groups (e.g. three) and provide each group with different information on something they are studying – for example, in history, they could be given the differing views of the king, the church and parliament on a particular issue. Then ask them to form big groups, each comprising three of the small groups. Two of the small groups have to ask questions of the other to get their information. The pair that ‘wins’ is the one that asks the fewest questions. The groups swap round so they all get a turn at being questioned.
Explore a new topic: Tell pupils what the new topic is about and ask them to identify what they already know. Make a note of these points and then ask pupils, perhaps working in groups at first, to generate a number of questions about the topic they would like to explore further. You could use some question stems from the grid on pages 13–14 to use as prompts.
KWL grids - A KWL grid is a useful way for pupils to identify what they already know, generate questions and record answers.
| What I know | What I want to know | What I have learned |
| People over 18 can vote in elections in Britain. | Are there any people over 18 who are not allowed to vote? | These people can’t vote in elections:
|
- Classroom assignment: generating questions
Choose an area of work where it would be appropriate for pupils to generate their own questions. Try out one of the suggestions above and evaluate its effectiveness.
Try to complete a lesson record as you try out each tactic. You can adapt the example below to meet your needs. It is useful to make an audio recording of your lesson or have another teacher observe you so you can reflect on it later.
| Tactic | Pupils’ response: first try | Pupils’ response: second try | Pupils’ response: third try | Pupils’ response: fourth try | Pupils’ response: fifth try |
| Modelling the process | |||||
| Generating questions together | |||||
| Using generic questions | |||||
| Playing 20 questions | |||||
| Exploring a new topic |
