Nearly 150 educators – from around the United States and from as far away as Australia, Greece, France, Mexico, Barbados and elsewhere – were in Boston Monday to participate in the Students Are Not Asking Questions working conference.
The conference began with educators addressing important topics related to student engagement, inquiry and question-asking. Working in groups, they participated in a Question Formulation Technique session to brainstorm questions around two provocative statements, both of them quotes:
- “Although we say out loud that asking questions is a great idea, question-asking is not really valued in the classroom. The students know this, I think.”
- An obstacle to Students Asking Questions: “Being AFRAID to ask the wrong question.”
- How do teachers show what is valued?
- How do students know what to question?
- How do we create a safe question culture for kids
- What am I doing as a teacher that gives the message that their questions are not valued?
- What do the students think is valued in the classroom and why?
- Are the questions the end or the means?
- What is our role as teachers in this problem?
- Why do students feel this way?
- In what other setting do students naturally ask questions? What traits do these settings have?
- How do we get students to understand that questions drive learning?
- How do we help students to enjoy the questions they don’t know the answers to?
- Whose voices are being heard in the classrooms? How do we maximize student voice?
- What are the clues students notice that tell them we don’t value questions?
- How do we model good question technique?
- How do we make room for questions in the curriculum?
- How can we model the expectations that we have for students?
- What makes students think that “we” don’t really want them to ask questions?
- How might we change institutional culture so students might ask more questions?
- What do we do to make students feel that their questions are not being valued, and how can we change that?
- Why might students feel that it is risky to ask questions?
- Why is teaching the skill of asking questions challenging?
- How do we create a classroom environment where students feel questions are valued?
- What evidence is there that students “know” questions aren’t valued?
- Are questions valued in our society? What do questions say about the asker?
- How do they define a “wrong” question?
- How does the question focus affect the questions?
- In what environment are they not afraid to ask questions?
- Where does that fear come from?
- How do you create an environment that supports students questioning?
- Are teachers afraid of student questions?
- Why are they afraid?
- What constitutes a wrong question?
- How do we crate an environment with less fear?
- Where does this fear come from?
- How can I make my students less afraid?
- How can a question be wrong?
- What are students afraid of?
- How can we create a safe and accepting and risk-taking environment in our classroom?
- What do they think will happen if they ask the wrong question?
- What makes a question wrong?
- Are you afraid?
- What are the consequences of being wrong?
- Why are students afraid to ask the wrong question?
- How do we create an environment in which students are not afraid to ask questions?
- Are there times when [students] are not afraid to ask?
- How can teachers facilitate students not being afraid?
- Why are they afraid to ask questions?
- What do right and wrong questions look like?