How I Plan on Teaching Questioning

So I've been reading this book on questioning called Make Just One Change by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana. The book is so engaging because it's teaching me what inquiry really is, and how to teach it. It begins with the interesting observation that since the days of Socrates, education has centered around teachers asking questions to students. The impetus behind teaching questioning is to flip this paradigm so that students are the ones asking the questions. This is a lot harder than it sounds because we want to ask questions out of sheer habit, and fostering conditions that are fertile for student generated questions is quite a delicate process. The process is called the Question Formulation Technique (QFT). The authors argue that it promotes divergent and convergent thinking, and metacognition.

Here are the steps of the process:
1. Choose Question Focus (QFocus)
Probably the most important part, basically the idea is to give a prompt, but NOT a question. Example: Torture can be justified

2. Students generate questions that fall beneath this QFocus following 4 rules:
-Ask as many questions as you can
-Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any question
-Write down every question exactly as stated
-Change any statement into a question

(it's recommended that teachers allow students time to process and discuss these rules and why they are important to follow, before asking them to engage in generating questions-I like the idea of using a template to facilitate discussion around potential difficulties)

3. Categorizing closed and open-ended questions.
Self-explanatory, but the extensions of this process are cool (see step 4)

4. Improving the questions
After students have finished learning the difference between closed and opened, and have categorized the questions, you ask them to change one open question to a closed one, and vice versa. This gets them to think about how the format of a question can change the information one gets in the answer (metacognition). It teaches them how and why to be more explicit in the formation of their questions.

To scaffold the process, I will give them stems: open-ended questions usually begin with why and how?, closed questions usually begin with is, do, and can?, and words like where, who, when, and what? can start open or closed questions.

This process should be empowering. You might also ask them to create a list of situations in which different types of questions might be appropriate to use.

5. Students prioritize questions
Have students prioritize their questions according to a criteria that you set (this helps you funnel their prioritization towards the types of questions that will best facilitate the end goal you have in mind for them). Example prompts:
-choose the 3 most important questions
-the 3 that most interest you
-the 3 that will help you

It's also suggested that you ask students for the rationale behind their prioritizations. This work is done in small groups with a share out at the end. I wonder, will my students be over-enthusiastic or underwhelmed by this process? I think it all depends on how I build the activity up (emphasize its importance), and the language I provide them to use to discuss/argue their points.

6. Next steps
The questions that students ultimately prioritize, and this entire process more generally, can be used for sundry purposes:
-mid-unit assessments
-do nows
-test prep
-projects
-Socratic Seminar

One teacher used this process to have students modify, create, and explore math problems. He reported that it enabled greater differentiation in the class when students were able to engage in this process at will. Lower learners tended to ask more closed questions because they needed to learn and reinforce rules, patterns, formulas etc., while higher learners asked broader, more open-ended questions that enabled them to explore beyond the bounds of the textbook.

Another teacher found that asking questions allowed students to "unlock" concepts because the process coerced them to approach the concept from different angles. She also reported a shift in how they view themselves as learners: "They now have an ability to think and problem solve on their own, abilities they did know they had in them." (pg. 115)

I haven't finished reading the rest of the chapter, or the last chapter on "Reflection" but I'm sure they'll be equally informative. I'm excited to begin the process. I plan on teaching this process in conjunction with our reading of The Watsons go to Birmingham-1963. I want to use it in several cycles, here are the 3 Qfocuses I'm planning on using to launch each cycle:
1. Juvenile delinquents
2. Good families and bad families
3. Violence during the Civil Rights Movement

I like the idea of keeping the focuses broad because I don't want to stifle students before they get started. Also, the first 2 Qfocuses are being used to generate questions for Socratic Seminar so it makes sense that they're broader. The 3rd one is my launching point into a self-directed inquiry project around the Civil Rights movement. I think this ties well with the ending of the book (the Church bombing).

Here is my plan for the first week of implementing this process:
Day 1: go over rules for producing questions (students discuss pros and issues with these rules in groups)
-students generate questions in small groups with one notetaker on chart paper)

Day 2: -students categorize their questions as open or closed
-students improve their questions by changing one from open to closed, and vice versa. They then brainstorm the impact of such changes on the information the questions are likely to receive

Day 3: -students prioritize 3 questions under the criteria of “which questions do you think are the most important for us to discuss?”
-students compile these questions into a list, pick 1 of their own that they’d like to answer, and 1 from a different group. Students write answers either in class, or for homework

Day 4: -Socratic seminar using questions, and the answers that students have considered to these questions