Developing the Questioning
Mind
The Quality
Of Our Thinking
is Given in
The Quality
of Our Questions
It is not possible to be a
good thinker and a poor
questioner.
Questions define tasks,
express problems, and
delineate issues.
They drive thinking forward.
How Many People Have
Seriously Considered Important
Questions Related to Their
Thinking?
 What have I learned about how I think?
 Have I ever studied my thinking?
 What information do I have, for example, about
the intellectual processes involved in thinking?
 What do I really know about how to analyze,
evaluate, or reconstruct my thinking?
 Where does my thinking come from? How much
of it is of high quality?
 How much of it is of poor quality?
 How much of my thinking is vague, muddled,
inconsistent, inaccurate, illogical, or superficial?
 Am I, in any real sense, in control of my thinking?
 Do I know how to test it?
 Do I have any conscious standards for determining
when I am thinking well and when I am thinking
poorly?
 Have I ever discovered a significant problem in
my thinking and then changed it by a conscious
act of will?
 If anyone asked me to teach him or her what I
have learned about thinking thus far in my life,
would I have any idea what that was or how I
learned it?
6.1
Think for Yourself: Questioning Your
Questions
Answer this question: What are the questions you
would most like to answer? Once you have a short
list of three or four, answer these questions:
Where are these questions taking you? How is
your focus on these questions affecting your
behavior, your emotions, your experience, and the
quality of your life? For example, too much
emphasis on the question, “How can I get the
content covered in the small amount of time I have
in my classes?” may lead you to miss the
significance of this question, “What does it mean
to be an educated person and am I helping my
students become educated?”
Disciplined Questioning
transforms the mind
To Develop Skills of
Questioning:
 we need theory.
 we need to think important ideas into our
thinking.
Eight Questions Students Can
Routinely Ask when They Have
Constructed the Concept of the
Elements of Reasoning In Their
Thinking
1.
What is the main purpose of the reasoning?
2.
What are the key issues, problems, and questions
being addressed?
3.
What is the most important information being
used?
4.
What main inferences are embedded in the
reasoning?
5.
What are the key concepts guiding the reasoning?
6.
What assumptions are being used?
7.
What are the positive and negative implications?
8.
What point of view is/should be represented?
Questions Students Can
Routinely Ask In Order to Assess
Thinking
Questions Focused on the
Intellectual Standards
 Work in pairs. Use Questions Guide.
 Take turns reading aloud the sections with
questions related to the intellectual
standards on pp. 22-23.
 After you read each section, discuss how
important this standard is to your
discipline/subject, and how you might foster
student questioning focused on that
standard.
Discuss in pairs
 To what extent are you currently teaching
students to analyze and assess reasoning by
asking questions focused on the elements of
reasoning and intellectual standards?
 How can you foster student questioning
using the elements and standards?
Disciplined Questioners Develop
Tools for Questioning
 For every important concept, there are
questions implied by that concept.
 For every well-reasoned theory, there are
important questions implied by that theory.
 Examples: Anna Freud’s defense
mechanisms, Theory of Evolution
Formulate Questions Guided By
Theories in Your Discipline
 Make a short list of theories used in your
discipline or subject.
 Then choose one of these theories.
 Make a list of questions you can ask when
you understand the theory.
Three of the most distinguished
thinkers in history
had in common, not inexplicable genius,
but a questioning mind
Isaac Newton
At the age of 19 Newton drew up a list of questions
under 45 headings. His title, Quaestiones, signaled his
goal: to constantly question the nature of matter, place,
time, and motion. He worked hard to understand the
thinking of others working on his list of problems. For
example, he bought Descartes' Geometry and read it by
himself. After two or three pages, when he could
understand no further, “he began again and advanced
farther and continued doing so till he made himself
master of the whole.”
Newton said:
“I don’t know what I many seem to the world,
but, as to myself, I seem to have been only a
boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting
myself in now and then finding a smoother
pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst
the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered
before me.”
Charles Darwin
“I have never been able to remember for more than
a few days a single date or line of poetry.”
Instead, he had “the patience to reflect or ponder
for any number of years over any unexplained
problem…At no time am I a quick thinker or
writer: whatever I have done in science has
solely been by pondering, patience, and
industry.”
Albert Einstein
Einstein failed his entrance exam to Zurich
Polytechnic. When he finally passed (by
attending a cram school) he did not want to think
about scientific problems for a year. His final
exam was so non-distinguished that afterward he
was refused a post as an assistant.
Einstein said that his schooling required,
“the obedience of a corpse.” The effect of
the regimented school was a clear-cut
reaction; he learned “to question and
doubt.”
Einstein said of himself:
“I have no particular talent. I am merely
extremely inquisitive.”
Students Need the Tools of
Critical Thinking to Develop a
Questioning Mind,
a mind that continues to transform itself
through the questions it asks.
Distinguishing Questions of Fact,
Preference and Judgment
 In pairs, take turns reading pp. 8-9 in
Questions Guide.
 Make a list of your own questions in each
category.
Three Types of Questions
3
Conflicting
Systems
1
One System
2
No System
Require evidence
and reasoning
within a system
call for
stating a
subjective preference
Require evidence
and reasoning
within multiple
systems
a subjective
opinion
better and
worse answers
cannot be
assessed
judgment
a correct
answer
knowledge
To Determine Which of These Three
Types of Questions We Are Dealing
With (in Any Given Case) We Can Ask
the Following Questions:
 Are there relevant facts we need to consider?
 If yes, then either the facts alone settle the
question (and we are dealing with a question
of procedure), or
 the facts can be interpreted in different ways
(and the question is debatable).
 If there are no facts to consider, then it is a
matter of personal preference.
 If the facts settle the question, then it is a
“one-system” procedural question.
Categorize These Questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
How many people are in the room?
What is the chemical constitution of table salt?
What is the most significant medical problem
facing the country today?
What philosophy of nursing makes best sense,
given the present conditions of nursing?
Are we losing the war on cancer?
What is the unemployment rate now in Georgia?
What is the best way to live a healthy and fit
life?
Is secondary smoke a health hazard?
What is the best way to bring peace to the
Middle East?
Formulate Questions of
Judgment in Your Subject or
Discipline
Make a list of questions of judgment within
your discipline, or within a subject you
teach.
Discuss
 What is your understanding of prior
questions and domains within questions?
 How can understanding this theory help you
approach complex questions?
Choose one of your questions
Discuss with your partner:
 What domains are inherent in your
questions?
 What are some of the questions you would
have to answer before you answered the
complex question?
Identifying Prior Questions
 Read page 16 with a partner and discuss.
 Now choose one question on your list.
Working alone, make a list of questions one
would have to answer before answering the
original question.
Asking Complex
Interdisciplinary Questions
 Students need practice in reasoning through
complex interdisciplinary questions.
 Working with a partner, together read
through pages 17-18 in the Asking Essential
Questions guide.
 Discuss your understanding of the content.
Fostering Students’ Abilities to
Reason Through Complex
Interdisciplinary Questions
Make a list of interdisciplinary questions
you might have students reason through,
questions which include a dimension within
your discipline, as well as dimensions
within other disciplines.
Identifying Domains Within
Complex Questions
 Now choose one question from your list.
Write out the domains embedded in the
question and some important questions
within each domain one would have to
reason through before attempting to answer
the question. You should focus on a
question you would want students to be able
to reason through.
 Refer to pages 17-18.
Understanding the Foundations
of Ethical Reasoning
 Work with a partner.
 Person A reads pp. 28-29 (to middle of the
page)
 Person B reads the rest of p. 29-30.
 Take notes in order to teach to your partner.
 Then teach to your partner using only your
notes.
Identifying Ethical Dimensions
of Questions
 Make a list of ethical questions you would
want your students to reason through, or
questions with an ethical component.
 Then make a list of prior questions for that
questions – questions one would have to
answer before answering that question.
Understanding Foundational
Questions Within a Discipline
 Working alone, read pp. 35-37
 Then make a list of foundational questions
within one subject or discipline you teach.
Reasoning Through Complex
Conceptual Questions
 In pairs, read pp. 11-12 in Questions guide.
Discuss your understanding of simple and
complex conceptual questions.
 Read p. 13 together and discuss the four
conceptual tools.
 Together, choose one complex conceptual
question on p. 12 and formulate at least one
example of each type of case discussed on p. 13
for the question you have chosen.
 Then complete the process outlined at the bottom
of p. 14.
Questions that develop the mind emerge out of
theory about the mind and how it operates
Questioning
assumptions and
implications
Questions can
lead in many
directions
Questioning
questions
Questioning the
quality of
thinking
Questioning
concepts
Questioning the
logic of
thinking