Intelligent Learning Programme 2
Encouraging Questioning
“Good thinking and dialogue involves turning the chaos of
information and experience into meaning” – Steve Williams
Discussion Questions:
1.
What is the value of pupils asking good questions?
Discussion Questions:
2.
How can we help pupils to ask the right kind of questions
consistently so that they become more independent
learners?
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Community of Enquiry (P4C) approach –
1. Tim – Unit of work on Planets & beyond
2. Sarah – Pupils think of questions on Willy the Wimp
Discussion Questions:
3. What do you think of the Community of Enquiry (P4C)
approach to developing quality talk and good questioning
within the curriculum?
Doug – World War 1
Students think of questions individually, then pair up and choose a
question.
Then Doug looks for more philosophical questions to add to those more
directly related to the topic.
Eg “Why do people go to war?”
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Discussion Questions:
4. What do you think of Doug’s argument for planning for
pupils to ask general and philosophical questions as well as
curriculum specific ones?
Student Voice
Pupils reflect on how and why they ask questions confidently in Doug’s lessons
Tim – classifying pictures of Kenya
 Pupils compare and contrast the pictures
 Then come up with three questions about the cards
 Tim encourages pupils to use the grid below to record their research progress
and the questions they come up with.
Facts
Further Questions
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Other Questions the topic
answers
Building and encouraging a questioning culture (through reflection time)
“Pupils’ questioning skills will improve if they are allowed to reflect on
the nature of their questions” – Steve Williams
Tim has collected pupils’ good questions during the unit of work.
He now asks pupils to think about the questions by categorising them.
The categories he uses are: (there others we can use)
 Questions which have an answer (Closed)
 Questions which don’t have an answer (Open)
 Rights/Wrongs
 Emotions/Feelings
 Facts
 Opinions
 Beliefs
 Truths
Doug uses a Venn diagram to help pupils categorise questions into Fact or Opinion
Sarah asks for more philosophical questions to add to those more directly related to
the topic.
Reflecting on questions from the topic
Discussion questions:
5. How useful is it for pupils to reflect on questions and
categorise them?
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Discussion questions:
6. How could we build a questioning culture in our classrooms
/ schools?
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Intelligent Learning Programme 2 – Planning Sheet
Encouraging Good Questioning: The Dialogue of Active Minds
Name(s):
School:
I/We will encourage quality talk in our classroom(s) over the next term
with the following actions:
The following student actions will indicate an increase in quality talk in
my/our classroom:
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