In this video Paul Andersen explains how you can get your students asking more and better scientific questions.

In this video Paul Andersen explains how scientific phenomenon and sensemaking can be used in the science classroom to engage students and drive inquiry.





Transcript Provided by YouTube:

00:00

hi it’s Paul Andersen and in this video

00:02

I want to talk about asking questions

00:03

how do we get our students asking more

00:05

questions and how do we improve the

00:07

quality of the questions that they’re

00:08

asking this video is one of a set of

00:11

videos on scientific inquiry but asking

00:13

questions is fundamental to that process

00:15

how do we understand and take into

00:18

account the wonder of our students so we

00:19

can help them build knowledge based on

00:21

that now I think asking questions is

00:23

fundamental to what it is to be a human

00:25

this is a picture of me when I was a kid

00:27

asking my mom tons of questions it’s how

00:30

we learn and I’ve learned as a teacher

00:32

it’s important that you listen to the

00:33

questions that your students are asking

00:35

and understanding not only what are they

00:37

asking but how are they asking those

00:39

questions because that wondering is

00:41

really where they’re learning this is a

00:43

quote from mr. Rogers it’s in a song he

00:45

said did you know when you wonder you’re

00:47

learning did you know when you marvel

00:49

you’re learning did you know when you

00:51

wonder you’re learning about wonderful

00:53

marvelous things I have a website called

00:54

the wonder of science and the closest

00:56

thing I have to a motto is don’t kill

00:59

the Wonder I think if we as teachers

01:01

keep answering the questions that

01:03

students ask they’ll eventually quit

01:05

asking those questions and so what I

01:07

found when students asked questions is

01:09

that their wonder is amazing but their

01:11

questions are not always amazing we can

01:13

help them improve the quality of the

01:15

questions that are asking this is a

01:17

phenomena showed in an earlier video you

01:19

asked to you drop two spheres they look

01:21

the same one of them bounces and the

01:23

other one doesn’t I’ve asked this to

01:25

hundreds of kids so I have thousands of

01:27

questions and I started looking through

01:29

those questions looking for patterns and

01:32

what I found is the first word or two or

01:35

three in the question they asked is

01:37

sometimes the most important one if they

01:39

ask a question that starts with is or

01:42

are or what they’re usually asking a

01:45

pattern question they want to know is

01:47

one of the spheres Hollow is it sticky

01:49

these are observational type questions

01:52

it’s just what do they notice however if

01:55

they have a qualifier like is it

01:57

affected by or they ask questions that

01:59

start with how or why then they’re

02:01

trying to get to how does it work these

02:03

are cause and effect or structure and

02:05

function type questions I’ve also found

02:07

that they tend to not ask questions

02:08

related to systems where’s the energy in

02:11

the system go how does the energy

02:13

how does the system remain stable or how

02:15

does the system change over time and we

02:17

can help them start to ask questions

02:19

like that and so I’ve developed a set of

02:22

inquiry cards this would be the question

02:24

one and if you look on the back of it it

02:26

has two things the first thing it has is

02:28

a teaching sequence and the second thing

02:30

it has is a rubric it’s really important

02:32

that you tell kids right away what makes

02:35

a good scientific question the first

02:37

thing a good do scientific question

02:38

should do is address the phenomena it

02:40

helped it should help to explain the

02:42

phenomena that we’re trying to

02:43

understand or if we’re doing engineering

02:45

to better frame the problem that we’re

02:47

trying to solve

02:48

you should next identify the nature of

02:50

the question what type of a question are

02:52

you asking is it one of these

02:54

observational questions is it

02:55

explanatory is it a system question or

02:58

is it an engineering question are you

03:00

asking questions to better frame the

03:01

problem that we’re trying to solve and

03:03

then the third part of a good question

03:05

is it can it be empirically tested can

03:07

we gather data to answer that question

03:09

questions like is it beautiful or is it

03:12

wonderful a lot of those we can’t answer

03:14

those questions in science and so I’ve

03:17

developed a graphic organizer you could

03:19

download it below I like to put them in

03:21

these little dry erase folders so the

03:24

students can start writing their

03:26

questions on it it’s a graphic organizer

03:28

so you should use it at the beginning

03:29

but eventually it should evaporate and

03:31

so when you’re getting kids to ask

03:33

questions you want to start with some

03:35

kind of a phenomena so the one I’m going

03:37

to use in this video is the drinking

03:39

bird it’s a classical toy it’s a

03:41

classical science investigation but most

03:43

people don’t understand how it works and

03:45

in fact Einstein looked at it the first

03:47

time and really couldn’t figure out what

03:48

was going on first thing you want to do

03:50

is give them a phenomena and give them

03:52

time to start asking questions the first

03:54

one will come easy but if it doesn’t

03:56

give them that first question to get

03:58

them started like why do these birds

04:00

keep drinking and then give them time

04:02

and something to look at so they can

04:04

start asking those questions the best

04:06

thing to look at would be the actual

04:08

bird but if you can do that we’ve got a

04:10

video I’ll put a link to this video down

04:12

below of these drinking birds and I want

04:14

you to just start asking questions or

04:16

have your students ask questions it’ll

04:18

take a second for them to get into that

04:20

kind of a mode of wondering this is

04:23

better than just having them observe

04:25

that

04:26

wanna frame that absorb servation in a

04:28

question that you can kind of share with

04:29

someone else and so I would take a

04:31

second if you don’t know how this works

04:33

to write down a bunch of questions that

04:34

you might have or pause the video and

04:36

write down questions you have but I’m

04:38

going to show you what to do with those

04:39

questions once you bring those back

04:41

together

04:41

so first brainstorm those questions I

04:44

would encourage you to have your

04:45

students do that individually and then

04:47

we can start to share those questions

04:48

with other students so these would be

04:50

typical questions that students might

04:51

ask would it work without the cup is

04:53

there a valve under the head first thing

04:56

you want to do is then classify those

04:58

questions remember for it to be a good

04:59

question it should help us understand or

05:02

better explain the phenomenon so to any

05:04

of these questions here help us or don’t

05:07

do any of them not help us understand

05:09

the phenomena I think the last one like

05:11

how much do they cost doesn’t really

05:13

help us understand the phenomena and so

05:15

I would say that’s not a good question I

05:16

think one of the worst thing we can do

05:18

is tell kids any question you ask is a

05:20

good question that’s not true the

05:22

wondering is good but the way the

05:23

question is written might not be that

05:25

great now if you’re really getting

05:27

started on classifying questions I can’t

05:29

recommend the question formulation

05:30

technique enough here’s a website it’s

05:32

called the right question org you can go

05:34

there and they have protocols for asking

05:36

questions what they do is have the kids

05:38

brainstorm questions and then classify

05:40

those questions as either open-ended

05:42

questions or closed-ended question so

05:44

closed any question you could answer

05:46

with a yes or a No or a word or two so

05:49

if we were to go through the questions

05:50

that are asked the first one is an

05:52

open-ended question the second one since

05:54

I could answer it with just a yes or a

05:56

no is a closed-ended question so if we

05:58

go through those questions we can

06:01

classify what type of question you’re

06:03

asking now lots of times students will

06:04

ask me at this point which of the

06:06

questions are better open-ended or

06:07

closed-ended and the answer to that is

06:09

neither sometimes a question can be too

06:13

open-ended like the first one is if it’s

06:15

really going to be hard to test that

06:17

question it’s – won’t been ended but if

06:19

we look at like this one it’s to

06:21

closed-ended like what’s in the cup it’s

06:23

going to be really easy to figure that

06:24

out and it’s probably gonna require me

06:26

to ask that student a follow-up question

06:28

like what do you think is in the cup and

06:30

lots of times they’ll know more than was

06:32

included in the question itself and so

06:34

they might say there’s alcohol in the

06:36

cup or water in the cup that causes them

06:38

evaporation and

06:39

what I would say is can we make that

06:41

closed-ended question an open-ended

06:43

question to improve the quality of the

06:45

question that you’re asking so I I would

06:47

look at the question formulation

06:48

technique they’ve got a lot of resources

06:50

you could look at in asking questions

06:51

but I found in science it’s more

06:54

important to classify those questions

06:55

according to what the cross-cutting

06:57

concept is they’re really seven

06:59

different ways we can wonder in science

07:01

and those are represented by these seven

07:03

different cross-cutting concepts so how

07:04

does it keep drinking that would be a

07:06

cause-and-effect question what about the

07:08

next one would it work without the cup

07:09

that’s looking at cause and effect as

07:11

well is there a valve under the Hat

07:13

that’d be structure and function now

07:15

it’s really easy for me to classify

07:17

these questions according to the

07:19

cross-cutting concept but it wasn’t when

07:21

I started doing this and it’s really the

07:23

only time I as a teacher was able to

07:25

understand the value and what these

07:27

cross-cutting concepts were and so what

07:29

I would encourage you to do is have the

07:30

kids ask a bunch of questions and then

07:32

you try to classify what type of

07:34

questions these are based on the

07:35

cross-cutting concepts and what you’ll

07:37

find is they’re generally just gonna ask

07:39

questions about cause and effect

07:40

structure and function and what are the

07:42

parts of the system itself and so you

07:44

want to then ask questions outside that

07:47

realm so energy and matter what’s an

07:49

energy or matter question you could ask

07:51

well where does the energy come from

07:53

that’s driving these birds that’s a

07:55

fundamental question to why this how

07:57

this phenomena works or maybe scale

07:59

proportion and quantity would this work

08:01

if the birds were 10 meters tall or half

08:04

the size and so each time we ask a new

08:07

question with a new cross-cutting

08:08

concept it allows us to look at that

08:10

phenomena in a different way and so you

08:12

would really aspire to have your kids be

08:15

able to ask questions in each of these

08:16

seven different categories but it’s

08:18

going to take you a while to get to that

08:19

point now once they’ve done that what we

08:21

want to do is look at those questions

08:23

and say are they testable or not so

08:26

could I gather data to actually answer

08:28

those questions a good way to think

08:29

about that is could you hand the

08:31

question with the material the bird and

08:34

the cup to someone and could they gather

08:35

data on that so this first question how

08:38

does it keep drinking I don’t think

08:39

that’s a testable question at this point

08:41

it’s not specific enough whereas the

08:43

next one is and you can go through the

08:45

list and figure out which ones are

08:47

testable which ones are not testable and

08:49

then we can improve the questions to

08:51

make sure that they’re testable so for

08:52

looking at for example this one where

08:54

does the energy driving the bird come

08:56

from that’s not specific enough I

08:58

couldn’t give that question to somebody

08:59

to help them answer and have them kind

09:01

of come up with data and so let me make

09:03

that more specific it could be does the

09:05

energy that drives the fluid of the bird

09:08

come from the momentum of the bird so

09:11

that’s a testable question you’ve almost

09:13

got an independent and a dependent

09:14

variable there and they could come up

09:16

with an investigation based on that and

09:18

so asking questions is one of those

09:20

fundamental parts to do in scientific

09:22

inquiry it’s how we wonder and then next

09:25

thing we’re going to do is start to come

09:26

up with explanations which is how we

09:28

think but when you’re forming those

09:30

questions the most valuable thing you

09:32

could look at would be the cross-cutting

09:33

concepts if you look at the inquiry

09:35

cards on the back of the inquiry cards

09:37

I’ve got a bunch of questions that you

09:40

could ask I’ve also got a bunch of the

09:42

cross-cutting concept cards with

09:44

questions on the back these are all

09:45

framing questions there ways you can

09:47

frame that phenomena in a way that’ll

09:49

make it more understandable but probably

09:51

the most important thing that you do

09:53

with questions is that after you’ve

09:54

improved them is that you value them so

09:57

this is a bulletin board from a

09:59

kindergarten teacher she took all the

10:00

questions that the kids had and they put

10:02

them on a Wonderwall or Sarah English

10:05

she’s a chemistry teacher in New York is

10:07

gonna use this this fall she’s got a

10:08

driving question board and what she’s

10:11

gonna have the kids do is ask their

10:12

questions and then put them on the board

10:14

where they think they fit is it a

10:16

pattern type question is this a cause

10:17

and effect so you’re really making them

10:19

think not only about what are they

10:21

wondering but how are they wondering and

10:23

so that’s asking questions I think it’s

10:25

really important that we give our kids

10:27

practice we give them rubrics and then

10:29

give them time to improve their question

10:31

asking but it’s really the fundamental

10:33

first step to inquiry and I hope that

10:36

was helpful


Previously published on YouTube.



Photo credit: Screenshot from video.

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