How to ask better questions

“Most questions are safe, that is they surface what is already seen or understood, they lead to regurgitated ideas and opinions. In other words, most questions people ask really surface what is already known. Top performers however, they ask questions that go deep. They ask questions that move us from automatic, reactionary thinking to deep thinking, they ask questions that inspire creativity, fuel passion and lead to profound ideas. Most importantly they ask questions that spur people into action.” Mike Vaughan, 2015

The success of a good answer relies on the words we choose. For example, when confronted with a challenge consider two ways you might look at the problem, 1. What should we do? (narrowing possibilities) or 2. What could we do? (widening possibilities). Mike Vaughan, 2015

Do the majority of questions we ask in the classroom fall into the safe category? That is, questions we know the answer to, with a high chance that some or all students will also know the answer. It isn’t that we shouldn’t ask safe questions, they are important and provide us with an insight into the level of knowledge students have. However, if these are the only types of questions we ask are we doing a disservice to our students?

  • How will they learn to apply their knowledge to complex problems?
  • How will they use their knowledge to critically evaluate?
  • How will they use their knowledge to create?
  • How will they know it is ok to ask a question, which they do not know the answer to?

One thought on “How to ask better questions

  1. The ideas in this clip are a good starting point about why we need to think about the type of questions we ask. Possibly worth viewing as a staff?

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