The Question Formulation Technique
Tuning in: in this offering we begin to focus on the rich role of questioning in inquiry as Trevor facilitates the Question Formulation Technique. The QFT is a questioning protocol designed by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana. It is an exercise that teachers facilitate with students to help them create questions and become more competent questioners themselves. In this session you will engage in the QFT as a learner. In doing so, you will learn how to facilitate the QFT with your students.
Learning Objectives:
to infuse more questions into units of inquiry.
to help students become more competent questioners.
to scaffold agency to prepare for the deeper end of the pool.
to guide our professional learning.
Pause and reflect: after viewing, please consider
are there any ways you need to differentiate this process with your students? For example, you could break up the QFT into several sittings.
looking ahead at your unit design, when will you implement the QFT?
look around your classroom. Where would be a good physical space to make the questions your students generate visible?
download the QFT slide deck below. Review the slides. Do you need to make any changes to them prior to using it with your students?
in anticipation of using the QFT, review your curriculum and unit design. What concept or big idea will be your question focus?
Share and make meaning together: share your final unGoogleable question with your team or faculty. If you have done this activity with everyone on staff, you can do the same. Write your question on a stickynote and post it on a wall with everyone who engaged in the QFT along with you. Once all of the questions are visible, take time to review them all.
What do you notice? Are there any similarities or are any questions aligned? Feel free to begin to move them around on the way and sort them into concepts, categories, or key concepts. Notice the types of questions asked. Are they skinny? Are they thick?
Consider collaborating with your colleagues to co-plan units or co-teach in an interdisciplinary manner. Questions that are aligned lead to great collaborative opportunities for both you and your students.
And last, this act of taking notice of the questions created on the wall and sorting them into concepts, categories and key concepts as well as noticing whether they are skinny or thick is an important experience for your learners to engage in. Please work this into your lesson planning after the QFT has been facilitated.
Extend your learning: once your unGoogleable question has been created, post it in your classroom so it is visible. This question will frame your unit of study and be the overarching learning for the duration of the inquiry. Consider creating a learning wall (see Session 10) and capturing evidence around the question to help make the thinking visible and guide student reflection cross time.
Further, please consider how the questions your students create allow you to explore the layers of the Skills Taxonomy.
By creating questions using the QFT together, you have begun exploring the taxonomy with Questions.
As you categorize and flip questions together, you have Analyzed, Classified, and Compared questions.
As you prioritize questions you now have the ability to Evaluate, Implement, Problem Solve, and Test.
And finally, what you decide to do with the learning leads us to Create, Construct, Formulate, Plan, and Reflect.
Resources:
Download the QFT slide deck here.
Download the QFT questions template here.
Explore the work of Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana at rigthquestion.org of which Trevor cites in this offering.