When Learners Ask Poor Questions

Recently I was sitting outside at a coffee house with my wife and daughter. I was trying to figure out approximately what time I would arrive in Cincinnati if I left Des Moines around 7 in the morning. I’ll spare you the details of the subsequent conversation, but let’s just say I wasn’t getting the information I needed to get my answer because I was asking both my wife and daughter a series of poor questions.

What happens when learners ask poor questions?

Sadly, in traditional schools, very little. Most are allowed to ask poor questions, and continue to ask poor questions, with no correction. Little time is spent in our public school system coaching students how to ask great questions. Instead, most pedagogical time is spent having the teacher present information for the student to memorize and then regurgitate back in the form of test responses. Students don’t learn to ask effective questions, mainly because no time is spent teaching them how to learn from inquiry. Sad, but true.

In their book Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe introduce training that, when done correctly, can turn any young learner into a well-skilled questioner.

According to Wiggins and McTighe, “To get at matters of deep and enduring understanding we need to use provocative and multilayered questions that reveal the richness and complexities of a subject.”

Wiggins and McTighe continue:

“Essential Questions represent enduring questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no response. By connecting material to a significant theme that resonates with the lives of adolescents, essential questions can add relevance and focus to a unit of study. Essential Questions can be used to guide curricular decisions and can provide the backbone for assessments.”

Wiggins and McTighe provide a check list for young learners and their coaches interested in becoming better questioners. That check list includes:

• Does the question center around a student relevant major issue, problem, concern, or interest?
• Does the question probe for deeper meaning?
• Does the question set the stage for further questioning? Is the question open-ended?
• Is the question non-judgmental?
• Is the question meaningful and purposeful?
• Does the question appeal to emotions?
• Is the question intellectual?
• Does the question invite an exploration of ideas and beliefs?
• Does the question encourage collaboration?
• Does the question have more than one right answer?
• Is the question do-able as a project?
• Does the question ask the learner to make a decision? Or does the question ask the learner to plan a course of action?
• Is the question framed in ‘kid friendly’ language?
• Do you have a reasonable number of questions for research, study, and reflection?

Most schools can’t answer “yes” to most of these check list questions, and it seems like most aren’t even interested in developing a culture of inquiry within their classroom walls.

So what does that mean for those young people who sit in our public school classrooms today?

I think it means that those young people’s brains won’t be challenged by “essential questions.” Instead, students will continue to “sit and get,” unable to develop their critical thinking skills because the educational system they use doesn’t value inquiry-based learning to the level required to create life-long learners.

By the way, it takes 8 hours and 27 minutes to drive from Des Moines, Iowa to Cincinnati, Ohio, which doesn’t include the one-hour time change moving from Central to Eastern time. But, if you use GPS, it will include the time change automatically when figuring out your arrival time.

Til tomorrow. SVB