Helping Teachers Help Students Ask Questions

The following write-up was provided by Lexington Community Education.

Educators packed the ’s meeting room at the Tuesday night for a workshop with Lexington resident and author Dan Rothstein, in an event hosted by Lexington Community Education, as part of the program’s winter speaker series.

Rothstein, co-director of the Cambridge-based Right Question Institute and co-author (with Luz Santana) of “Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions,” told the gathering that the ability to ask questions “may the single most essential skill for learning, yet it is rarely deliberately taught.”

The model he advocates, known as the “Question Formulation Technique,” upends the Socratic approach to learning, in which a teacher trains students by asking them questions. In the Question Formulation Technique, teachers train students to develop relevant questions, ultimately causing them to be more engaged in their own education process. According to Rothstein, the process works in urban, suburban and rural schools, with struggling students as well as with top students. The end result, he said, is engaged students with improved critical thinking skills, and the ability to transfer these skills to the world outside the classroom. 

In a workshop exercise, Rothstein took the gathering through the process, asking them to create a list of questions focusing on the statement: “Students are not asking questions.” He asked the participants to write down as many questions as they could in response to the statement, without stopping to discuss, judge, or answer the questions.

In the next part of the exercise, he had them change any closed questions, that is, questions that could be answered with a simple “yes” or “no,” into open-ended questions, requiring an explanation. Lastly, he had them prioritize their questions.

Among the many responses were:

• Are they being encouraged to ask questions?
• Are they being discouraged to ask questions?
• What are the rewards for asking questions?
• How many questions do you want them to ask?
• Is the material interesting?
• How is asking questions related to creativity?

It was important, Rothstein said, to note that the more questions were asked, the more specific and relevant they became.

“Don’t stop at the first question, and don’t accept the first answer,” he said. “Go deeper.”

Teachers were encouraged to bring the exercise back to their classroom with a prompting statement of their own, to begin to train their students in the practice of asking questions of their educators. The rules of the exercise, Rothstein said, are key in helping to organizing and prioritizing, and “getting people to think about their learning.”

“This is where learning really starts,” he said.

Lexington Community Education is a self-sustaining program of the Lexington Public Schools, committed to promoting lifelong learning. Residents and non-residents over 16 are welcome to attend classes, which range from one night to several weeks, and are priced from $10 to $120. For information and to check course listings, please visit lexingtoncommunityed.org.