Teaching students how to ask scientific questions

When I teach inquiry units, I have found the hardest part is coming up with testable questions. Since this is an essential part of the inquiry process, it is an important skill for students ... See More

When I teach inquiry units, I have found the hardest part is coming up with testable questions. Since this is an essential part of the inquiry process, it is an important skill for students to learn. Even college students I have worked with have found this to be a challenge. What an excellent way to get across the idea that while there are no bad questions, different questions serve different purposes and in the process help students learn how to craft testable inquiry questions! I used a lesson similar to this in a methods course on the suggestion of another instructor but I wish I had this reference at hand when I did so. A well thought-out unit on helping students to develop good questioning skills.

Developing Questioning Skills

This article is about helping students develop good questioning skills. To do this the author gives them the ‘Questioning Skills Self-Assessment’ provided in this article. She then describ... See More

This article is about helping students develop good questioning skills. To do this the author gives them the ‘Questioning Skills Self-Assessment’ provided in this article. She then describes a series the steps she uses to help students develop questioning skills. This article is very helpful to fulfilling her goal. I think it would be interesting to provide the same type of questioning assessment and development for teachers as well.