This entire class is based off asking questions and it has helped me learn because of our small group work. We are looking at questions we find to be interesting and that makes it easier to want to learn and be engaged with the topic.
(Student response to anonymous survey about physics, 111)
How can a teacher create opportunities for students to generate and explore their own questions? This narrative describes my journey in designing and teaching an inquiry-based physics course for prospective teachers. My intent has been to create a learning environment within which small groups of students feel comfortable in taking action to learn by discussing their own ideas and in making choices about how and what to explore about the physical phenomena that we are investigating. The quote above suggests my efforts worked, at least for this student.
The purpose of this chapter is to make explicit ways that I attempt to nurture student questioning in this course. Two questions frame the discussion: What have I learned about questioning practices through my teaching experiences and research? How have I used those understandings in engaging students in generating and exploring their own questions?
First I briefly review literature about the nature of student questioning and summarize findings from my research on questioning in precollege classrooms. Next I discuss my approach to researching my own teaching practices and studentsâ learning. After describing the physics course, I then present several ways in which I have fostered student questioning. These include welcoming student questions during class sessions, eliciting student questions within homework assignments, and creating field experiences in which students assume roles as teachers to begin learning how to foster such student questioning themselves. I conclude the chapter with reflections about ways to foster student questioning.
Exploring the Nature of Student Questioning
No one has ever explained why children are so full of questions outside of the school (so that they pester grown-up persons if they get any encouragement), and the conspicuous absence of display of curiosity about the subject matter of school lessons.⦠(p. 183)
â¦where children are engaged in doing things and in discussing what arises in the course of their doing, it is foundâ¦that childrenâs inquiries are spontaneous and numerous, and the proposals of solution advanced, varied, and ingenious. (p. 183)
Deweyâs insight into the importance of engaging students âin doing things and in discussing what arises in the course of their doingâ (p. 183) anticipated the current emphasis on engaging students in active explorations (NGSS Lead States, 2013) and in interactive discourse practices in science classrooms (Kelly, 2007).
Lemke (1990) analyzed several discourse structures through which science teachers typically discourage their studentsâ engagement in learning science by dominating what is said and done. He also suggested alternative practices, such as âorganize more class time for student questions, student individual and group reports, true dialogue, cross-discussion, and small group workâ (p. 168).
Several teachers have documented such learning experiences at the elementary level. Doris (1991), for example, illustrated many ways to nurture childrenâs curiosity. Gallas (1995) recorded and interpreted enthusiastic questioning when young children were offered opportunities to talk about what they thought about a topic and why they thought that. Pearce (1999) described many ways to engage fifth grade students in their own investigations. The studentsâ explorations culminated in a âKids Inquiry Conferenceâ in which the children discussed their findings with one another, like scientists at a conference, rather than competing in front of adult judges at a science fair.
Chin and Osborne (2008) considered roles student questions may play in both learning and teaching science. Questions that emerge can help teachers diagnose studentsâ ideas, indicate the level of student thinking, enhance the curriculum, and contribute to a teacherâs growth in conceptual and pedagogical expertise. Barriers to student questioning include teachersâ perceptions of time and curriculum constraints, knowledge level, a view of teaching as transmission of information, and discomfort with open-ended discourse practices. Students may also avoid asking questions for social, cultural and personal reasons.
Explicit attention to formulating questions sometimes occurs during literacy instruction; students may then transfer these skills to science contexts (Shapiro, 1994, p. 194). Students also can be taught to generate better researchable questions (Cuccio-Schirripa & Steiner, 2000; Shapiro, 1996, 2015; Sharkawy, 2010). In addition, explicit instruction about questioning strategies can help students talk about science with one another (Chin & Osborne, 2010; Iwasyk, 1997; Rothstein & Santana, 2011).
As discussed next, my interest in engaging students in asking their own questions has emerged from my teaching experiences and research program.
Emergence of My Interest in Guiding Students to Take Actions of Their Own to Learn Through Questioning
Like many teachers, I began teaching science based on my own experiences: My students sat at desks lined up in rows while I stood in front and told them what I thought they ought to know.
Later I learned a different way, as an instructor in special physics programs for minority students and teachers (McDermott, 1990, 2006). These served as sites for developing the Physics by Inquiry curriculum (McDermott & The Physics Education Group, 1996). In these programs, students worked in small groups while staff circulated among the tables. It was here that I learned how to listen closely to what students were saying to one another and to ask questions or make comments only as needed. As lead instructor eventually, I mentored new staff members, who often struggled to respond to student questions by asking questions that prompt the next step in thinking rather than by telling answers, a âdilemma of teachingâ that others have documented (e.g., Volkmann & Zgagacz, 2004, pp. 595â598).
For my postdoctoral research project, I collaborated with a high school teacher, Jim Minstrell, who engaged his students in many thoughtful discussions while conducting his own research on physics learning (Minstrell, 1982, 1992, 2000). Together we explored how he used questioning to guide student thinking (van Zee & Minstrell, 1997a, 1997b). As shown in the appendix, I created a visual way to represent questions and comments that he, as the class teacher, and his students made during a discussion. Minstrell described many of his questions as reflective tosses. He envisioned catching the meaning of a studentâs prior utterance and tossing responsibility for thinking back to the student, for example, âWhat do you mean by [the term] âaverageâ here?â (van Zee & Minstrell, 1997, p. 235). He asked such questions to make meanings clear, to explore various points of view in a neutral manner, and to help students monitor the discussion and their own thinking.
In addition, I explored ways to encourage students to take actions to learn by asking their own questions during science lessons facilitated by experienced teachers (van Zee, Iwasyk, Kurose, Simpson, & Wild, 2001). We found that students asked questions when we invited them to do so, they made multiple observations over long time periods, they felt comfortable trying to understand one anotherâs thinking, and they were collaborating with one another in small groups.
A colleague, David Hammer, and I invited experienced teachers to focus on the science in what the children said and did while talking about phenomena in open-ended ways (Hammer & van Zee, 2006). During summer institutes, participating teachers worked in small groups, asking questions of one another in their roles as student inquirers. Their questions were similar to those Minstrell asked as a teacher during guided inquiry discussions (van Zee, Hammer, Bell, Peters, & Roy, 2005).
These experiences formed the perspective underlying my approach to designing the physics course for prospective teachers. As discussed next, I have documented ways in which I try to extend and encourage student questioning in my courses.
An Interpretative Research Approach
In order to document what happens in the physics course, I conduct a form of research known as teacher research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Roberts, Bove, & van Zee, 2007; Roth, 2007). Teacher research involves constructing a detailed account of oneâs own teaching practices and studentsâ learning. With Institutional Review Board approved forms, I ask consent from my students to collect data in my courses while teaching. These data include video recordings of class sessions and copies of student writings, drawings, and responses on anonymous questionnaires. Data also include my reflections about my intentions and experiences in designing and teaching the course.
This form of research is also referred to as the scholarship of teaching and learning (Shulman, 2004), self-study (Loughran, 2007), and practitioner research (Zeichner & Noffke, 2001). The narrative presented here builds upon my earlier studies conducted with support from the Spencer Foundation Practitioner Research program (van Zee, 2000; van Zee, Lay, & Roberts, 2003), Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Roberts, Bove, & van Zee, 2007), and the National Science Foundation (Hammer & van Zee, 2006; van Zee, Hammer, Bell, Peters, & Roy, 2005; van Zee, Iwasyk, Kurose, Simpson, & Wild, 2001; van Zee et al., 2013a, 2013b).
Because my perceptions and philosophical commitments can bias accounts of my own teaching practices and studentsâ learning, I do not attempt to develop generalizations that apply across multiple contexts. Instead my intent is to provide information and explicit examples that others may find useful in their own settings.
The Physics Course
The physics course meets in a laboratory for 2.5 hour sessions, twice a week, for ten weeks. My students are prospective teachers, primarily female undergraduates majoring in health and human sciences. We restrict entry to those who have completed at least one of three required mathematics courses for students who plan to apply to enter our elementary teacher education program later in their studies. Peer instructors, who are graduates of the course, assist me both in teaching physics and in helping students understand and come to appreciate our inquiry-based instructional approach.
During the course, we engage the students in explorations of the nature of light phenomena, thermal phenomena, influence of light and thermal phenomena on local weather and global climate change, and the nature of astronomical phenomena within the Sun/Earth/Moon system (i.e., phases of the moon and Earthâs seasons). Each unit begins with identification of resources (Hammer, 2000) such as studentsâ initial ideas, development of powerful ideas based on evidence, use of these powerful ideas to construct explanations of intriguing phenomena, development of mathematical representations, and use of these representations to estimate a quantity of interest (van Zee, 2015).
Below I describe ways I structure class sessions, homework assignments, and field experiences to foster student questioning, with evidence consisting of quotes from studentsâ responses. A course wiki provides detailed examples of these activities at http://physics.oregonstate.edu/coursewikis/ph111
Fostering Student Questioning During Class Sessions
The primary way I foster the development of questioning skills is to structure class activities so that students can express their own ideas and ask questions about what interests them. As discussed below, the first major course activity on Day 1 engages students in identifying questioning as important in fostering learning. Most activities throughout the course include opportunities for small groups to generate and explore their own questions. Every session ends with students reflecting upon what they have just learned and are still wondering.
Engaging Students in Identifying Questioning as Important in Fostering Learning
Class List of Aspects That Have Fostered Science Learning:
Group work, understandable, discussion, asking questions, fun, entertaining, interactive, exciting, surprising, choice, visual, field trips, exploration, and suspense. (Physics 111, list generated by students on Day 1)
We decorate the walls with their drawings and list. I often refer to this list, particularly when students seem puzzled by my expectation that they generate and explore their own questions within the topic that we are investigating.
Generating and Exploring Studentsâ Own Questions in Small Groups
Later in the first dayâs session, we put immediately into practice the expectation that students will be generating and exploring their own questions. After initial demonstrations and discussions about light, each small group gets their own lamp, barrier, meter stick, and screen with an open-ended prompt: âWhat can you find out about light and shadows with this equipment?â
My peer instructors and I circulate among the groups and offer encouragement with gentle guidance as needed. Members of each small group generate a question they want to explore and record their question and findings on a large white board. The small groups then present their results to the whole group. (For details, click on Day-by-Day Summary on the course wiki, next on Fall 2009, then on Day 1 and finally on Light Exploration.) For homework, I give students pieces of cardboard and suggest they invite friends or family members to explore light and shadow phenomena with them in a similar open-ended way. (For further details about âfriends and familyâ assignments, see, Crowl, Devitt, Jansen, van Zee, and Winograd, 2013, and the section on field experiences below.)
On Day 2, the small groups again generate their own questions within the context of the next step in our exploration of light phenomena, making and using pinhole cameras. Most are surprised to see an upside down projection of a light bulb when looking at a lamp through a pinhole camera. (For details, click on Activities
The students post their reflections on our electronic bulletin board to share their evolving understandings about ways to foster science learning.
Reflecting and Articulating Questions Near the End of Each Class
We end each class with a practice adapted from John Laymanâs physics course at the University of Maryland, sharing reflections about what each learned that day and is still wondering. During Day 3, for example, we use pinhole phenomena to estimate the sunâs diameter. (For details, click on Day-by-Day Summary on the course wiki, next on Fall 2009, then on Day 3, and finally on Diameter of the Sun and Reflections.) A student stated that she learned âHow to determine how big the sun was using the pinhole phenomenaâ and wondered âHow accurate are our estimates of the sunâs size?â Another student wondered âCan this concept be applied to the moon?â Articulating such questions and listening to othersâ ponderings may prompt students to continue investigating outside of class. This feedback also sometimes influences my instructional plans for the next session.
Fostering Student Questioning Within Homework Assignments
The homework assignments provide several contexts for encouraging students to take action to learn by asking their own questions. As discussed below, these include having small groups generate and design on-going investigations on which
Generating and Designing On-Going Small Group Investigations
Our group decided to ask the question, âHow does time change the moonâs position in the sky?â To do this each of us will record the moonâs placement in the sky at a specific time for 10 days. Since there are four of us we will record the moonâs placement in the sky every hour from 7 pm to 10 pm.⦠My role in this is to record the moon at 8 pm.â¦
We observed that the time does in fact change the placement of the moon. From 7â10 pm we noticed the moon moves up from East to West. This supported our first claim that the moon does move with time⦠However, we noticed that the moon has changed placement at the same time every evening. Our first day at 8 pm we noticed the moon was up in the East of the sky. By the end of our experiment we noticed that at 8 pm the moon was way lower and hardly seen⦠(She included photos of her sky journal pages as evidence to support her claims.) (Physics 111 student, Homework 1 and 2)
This group found that they had to adjust their design because, by the second week of observations, the moon had not yet risen by 7 pm, a time they had assigned themselves for making observations. As course instructor, I chose not to intervene in their plans. I thought it important to let them experience not seeing the moon as they had anticipated and having to modify their procedure accordingly.
Building Whole Group Explorations upon Small Group Reports
Usually at least one of the groups makes the intriguing paradoxical observation that the moon appears to move east to west, like the sun, over several hours but west to
Generating Questions within Reading Reflections and Other Assignments
The weekly readings include articles written by teachers reflecting upon their experiences teaching science through inquiry (e.g., Hogan, 2007; Iwasyk, 1997; Kurose, 2000; Roberts, 1999). I ask students to develop strategies for integrating science and literacy learning as they read. (For details, click on Instructional Strategies on the course wiki, next on Literacy, and then on Reading Strategies and Science Journal Articles.) These strategies include asking oneself questions before, during, and after reading each article (Devitt, 2010; van Zee et al., 2013a, 2013b). For example, while reading a first grade teacherâs chapter about using motion detectors to teach how to write sequential directions (Hogan, 2007), a student wondered, âwhat new, exciting, technologies will be available when I have my own classroom?â I also ask students to propose questions about each topic we have explored. They post these on our discussion board to help study for examinations.
Formulating, Researching, and Reporting on Oneâs Own Question of Interest
Toward the end of the course, we explore the influence of light and thermal phenomena on global climate change, with an emphasis on understanding the greenhouse effect and physical causes of rising sea levels (van Zee, Roberts, & Grobart, 2016). This includes students reporting something they find interesting on university, state, national, and international websites about climate change. They also formulate their own questions about global climate change and identify, use, and critique relevant internet resources to craft a report of their findings (For details, click on Activities on the course wiki and next on Climate Change).
Fostering Student Questioning During Field Experiences
There are several ways that I create opportunities during field experiences for the students to gain experience in fostering questioning to enhance learning. As discussed below, approaches include enticing others, such as friends or family members, to ask questions while exploring physical phenomena together. I also ask students to create
Enticing Others to Ask Questions during âFriends and Familyâ Assignments
I shared my knowledge about sea breezes with my roommateâ¦She wondered why when the warm moist air was rising, it did not take form of a white cloud. She then proceeded to ask about what a cloud really was and why on sunny days they were white and on rainy days they were grey. Together we started forming questions like âWhat happens when the sand cools off at night?â âWhat happens to the warm moist air once it becomes a cloud?â and âWhat does it mean when there are no clouds in the afternoon?ââ¦I value the way⦠(we) were able to ask and answer each otherâs questions. I was really happy that my roommate felt comfortable enough to really challenge my understanding of sea breezes. If she did not understand a concept, she would ask questions until she understoodâ¦So it was really nice to have her poke and pry at what I understood. (Physics 111 student, friend/family homework assignment)
This student was learning to talk and write about science in a non-threatening context as well as to listen closely to what a science learner was saying and asking.
Creating a Childrenâs Book Fostering Open-Ended Conversations
What does the sand feel like? Is it warm? What if you dig your toes down a little further?
What about the water? Why do you think the water feels much colder than the sand? Isnât the sun shining on both of them?
Subsequent pages engage the reader in developing an explanation. The students try out their childrenâs books with friends or family members, preferably of the age
Page of childrenâs book created by Physics 111 student
Designing and Implementing Opportunities for Children to Ask Questions
During Discovery Day, I was at the temperature probes station and one boy asked, before I had time to ask him myself, âwhat would happen if we put the cold one into the hot one?â I was impressed that he (wanted to) explore that wondering on his own. So I asked him what he thought might happen. He was not sure so I narrowed it down a bit and asked what he thought the blue line on the graph would do, will it go up or down? He said up so I let him explore to find out. The boy got excited and said âwow!â when he saw his prediction come trueâ¦I learned how to foster their exploration in learning more about their questions themselves.⦠(Physics 111 student, reflection on Discovery Days)
Asking students to write about such experiences signals the importance of learning both about science content and also effective approaches to science pedagogy.
I chose to offer my students a chance to generate ideas of what they already know about hot and cold thermal phenomena and then develop an experiment for them to each follow through. Each student had the opportunity to form their own hypothesis and explore with the thermal probes; while a single student would implement their chosen experiment and watch the graph, the other two students and I would help them by pouring water as needed or pressing the buttons on the computer so that the student who had developed the plan could focus on their observations. We discussed openly any disagreements about what might happen and/or any results that did or did not match our predictions. Towards the end of our time together, we discussed and wrote down the most interesting things we learned. (Physics 111 student, field trip teaching description)
As part of the final assessment, students design another 5E lesson plan to teach an aspect of the topic of climate change for the age group they are hoping to teach.
Studentsâ Reflections on Learning to Ask and Use questions in Teaching and Learning
Reflection on pedagogical issues occurs throughout the course. As discussed above under class sessions, we close each class with a group reflection where each student comments upon âwhat was learned?â and âwhat still wondering?â Homework assignments include weekly reflections on the readings, most of which include examples of practicing teachersâ writing about their experiences using inquiry-based instructional approaches. As discussed below, I also ask each small group to generate and explore a question about teaching and learning science in the context of their field trip to the elementary school. Students also respond to anonymous surveys in the middle of the course and during the last session.
Generating and Exploring Pedagogical Questions about Science Teaching and Learning
My groupâs question before we went into the classroom was âWhat is the balance between explaining and letting students explore on their own?ââ¦I think that it is important to let kids explore on their own, and if they need some direction or assistance then asking them questions is a good way to teach them without actually giving them an answer. It allows them to continue exploring
with a little more guidance. An example of this was when we first started and a little girl said, âHow did it do that?â and the other students got excited and started telling her excitedly. I realized that I did not really need to worry about explaining because they would figure it out from experimenting more, and they had their peers to help them.⦠(Physics 111 student, field trip reflection)
During the next class session, small groups talk about their questions and their experiences of working with children, record some aspect of their inquiry on a large whiteboard, and present their question and findings to the whole group for discussion.
Reflecting upon Learning and Teaching Science through Inquiry
The most important to me is cause and effect because we observe what is happening first, which allows us to wonder and come up with our own idea of why that is happening. Then we are able to put it into experiments where we try different things to learn the effects of why it occurred. (Physics 111 student, online survey response)
Science has always been more challenging for me and therefore pretty boring. This class made me feel excited to learn again.
This class showed me how important it is to actively explore science concepts.
Instructor Reflection
What have I learned through designing and teaching an inquiry-based physics course that encourages students to take action to learn by asking questions of their own? I recognize the importance of engaging students both âin doing things and in discussing what arises in the course of their doingâ (Dewey, 1916, p. 183). Focusing like Dewey on âdoing thingsâ has meant involving students in inquiries broadly defined by myself as the instructor with opportunities for small groups to generate and explore their own questions within those contexts. âDoing thingsâ also has
The âdiscussing what arises in the course of their doingâ aspect emphasized by Dewey has taken many forms in my course. I have guided students to ask and answer questions during small group conversations, large group discussions, and through talking about science with friends and family members at home, with individual children during Discovery Day at the university, and with small groups of children at a local elementary school. Here the emphasis has been on students asking questions that help clarify and communicate their ideas, develop explanations, and interpret what others are saying and doing.
My students have asked questions in multiple contexts for multiple purposes, similar to those reported by Chin and Osborne (2008) in their review. The students all entered the course knowing something about the moon, for example, but expressed puzzlement and wonderment as they observed that the moon seems to move east to west across the sky during several hours but west to east over several days. I encouraged them to formulate their own questions to explore within the context of our investigations in class. In their reflections at the end of each class session, they often expressed wonderings in which they made connections among related ideas. They reported many questions friends and family asked to clarify meanings and propose explanations during explorations at home and often referred to their own questions that emerged as they deepened their understanding through these conversations. As the instructor, I both valued and felt challenged by the questions my students asked. Questions I anticipated provided insights into where the students were in their thinking. Those that surprised me deepened my own understanding and often prompted me to modify my plans, particularly questions they expressed during our âwhat learned?â, âwhat still wonderingâ reflections at the end of class.
What am I still wondering about? Like the students quoted above, I ponder the balance between âexplaining and letting students explore on their own.â How can I continue ensuring adequate âtime to playâ while choosing to add new topics? I take seriously anonymous suggestions for improvement such as, âI think it would be helpful to have fewer or shorter activities during class. This would allow us to naturally come to conclusions rather than be rushed into them or given the answer,â a comment I attribute directly to my having added new activities and discussions about weather and climate change without sufficient cutting of existing material. I also am contemplating suggestions gleaned from the professional literature for teaching new ways to formulate high quality questions. The main question that I continue to pose for myself is: Which way and how should I incorporate such guidance within our current practices?
This chapter is designed to describe and share my ongoing efforts in an evolving process of designing, trying, and pondering structures that facilitate helping studentsâ learn to engage in questions of their own to make choices and develop strategies for their own learning. My hope is that others will find such examples inspiring and hopefully, useful in their own settings.
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Appendix
For my postdoctoral research project, I collaborated with a high school teacher, Jim Minstrell, in exploring how he used questioning to guide student thinking (van Zee & Minstrell, 1997a, 1997b). As shown below, I created a visual way to represent questions and comments that he, as the class teacher, and his students made during a discussion. On large pieces of poster paper, I drew vertical rectangles to record questions, their form (noted above each question) and function (noted below the question). I also drew horizontal rectangles whose lengths represented the duration of student comments.
Figure 6.2 represents a typical teacher-dominated discourse pattern known as a series of IREs (Mehan, 1979). An IRE is a teacher Initiated question, short student Response, followed by a teacher Evaluation and typically, the next teacher question.
Visual representation of a series of IREs, read left to right
What I was attempting to document through studying Minstrellâs teaching was a different pattern that I was observing, instances in which the teacherâs questions prompted elaborated student responses as shown in Figure 6.3. Minstrell described many of his questions as reflective tosses. He envisioned catching the meaning of a studentâs prior utterance and tossing responsibility for thinking back to the student, for example, âWhat do you mean by [the term] âaverageâ here?â (van Zee & Minstrell, 1997, p. 235). He asked such questions to make meanings clear, to explore various points of view in a neutral manner, and to help students monitor the discussion and their own thinking
Visual representation of a teacher question (vertical rectangle) that prompted an elaborated student response (long horizontal rectangle)
This representation conveys visually the open opportunity that such teacher questions provide for a student to respond with an extended statement of what he or she is thinking. Such a discourse structure puts other students in the conversationally appropriate position to take action to learn by asking a question as shown in Figure 6.4.
Visual representation of a teacher question (left vertical rectangle) that initiates a student-generated inquiry discussion with students both asking (right vertical rectangle) and answering questions (long horizontal rectangles)
In this pattern, I noted that if the teacher stayed quiet and waited, another student might risk asking a question. Then other students might be inspired to take action to learn by responding with their own additional ideas and subsequent questions.