Facilitate Student Curiosity and Engagement

The skill of question asking is far too rarely deliberately taught in school. We have worked with and learned from educators to develop a teaching strategy, the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), which provides a simple yet powerful way to teach students how to formulate, work with, and use their own questions.

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Steps of the QFT & Video Guide

Steps of the QFT & Video Guide
Detailed steps of the QFT and links to video footage for corresponding steps.

The QFT on One Slide

The QFT on One Slide
A quick, one-page overview of the whole Question Formulation Technique process.

Experiencing the QFT

Use this template to learn the QFT process by experiencing it yourself.

Introducing the QFT into Your Classroom Practice

This PowerPoint will help you prepare for introducing your students or colleagues to the QFT. It includes all the steps…

The Question Formulation Technique in Action

This video shows a 12th-grade humanities teacher, Ling-Se Chesnakas, using the QFT with her class in Boston. Ling-Se used the QFT to prepare students for a Socratic seminar and help them with a writing assignment about the book "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," by Junot Diaz.

My QFT Journey: Putting Students’ Minds into Motion with their Questions

My QFT Journey: Putting Students’ Minds into Motion with their Questions
Helping my students find their voice through questioning has led directly to their academic achievement. The level of student growth over the last five months has been unbelievable.

Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: One Small Change Can Yield Big Results

Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: One Small Change Can Yield Big Results
For teachers, using the QFT requires one small but significant shift in practice: Students will be asking all the questions.

“How does the sun’s power get into you?” Using the QFT to Explore Energy with First Graders

“How does the sun’s power get into you?” Using the QFT to Explore Energy with First Graders
What I like about the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) process is that it provides an opportunity for my first graders to ask their questions without feeling insecure or judged on their prior knowledge.

How Questioning Can Drive Arguments, Productive Debate & Information Literacy Among Students

How Questioning Can Drive Arguments, Productive Debate & Information Literacy Among Students
The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) is a step-by-step process that creates a space and a structure for students to generate…

What is the QFT?

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I’d also enjoy seeing more teachers take a page out of the Right Question Institute and help students learn to formulate great questions.

…it wouldn’t be hard to supercharge the Question Formulation Technique with big questions. Teachers could choose Question Foci with big understandings in mind. Learners could include criteria related to insight, action, ethics, and opportunity as they sort their questions for importance. The main point is this: putting learners in charge of questions.

I have seen students that are on IEPs or been receiving Title 1 support excel in the classroom when participating in the QFT. I would have never discovered what was going on in their brain if we didn’t allow for this opportunity.

A principal point of big questions is to inspire learners to ask them as well as pursue them. Make Just One Change by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana puts this agenda front and center. Their subtitle telegraphs the ‘one change’: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions.

We’re three weeks into the semester, and students are becoming animated and engaged. And they appear to be developing into a community of thinkers. Thank you so much for teaching an effective technique that is so easy to incorporate.

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