Lori Donovan Instructional Specialist, Library Services Laurie Surles Teacher Consultant, History & Social Sciences Chesterfield County Public Schools Longwood Literacy Institute 2014 Did Socrates Get It Wrong? Making Connections Through Student Questioning

The Question Formulation Technique™ (QFT™) 1. Question Focus (QFocus) 2. Rules for Producing Questions 3. Producing Questions 4. Categorizing Questions 5. Prioritizing Questions 6. Next Steps 7. Reflection

Rules for Producing Questions Ask as many questions as you can. Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any question. Write down every question EXACTLY as it is stated. Change any statement into a question.

QFocus The only way to teach students higher-order thinking skills is the Socratic Method.

Categorizing Questions Teacher Role Introduce a definition for closed- and open-ended questions Support students as they categorize questions Facilitate a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of closed- and open-ended questions Support students as the change questions from one type to another Student Role Review list of questions they have produced Categorize questions as closed- or open-ended Name advantages and disadvantages of asking closed- and open-ended questions Practice changing questions from closed- to open-ended and open- to closed-ended

Prioritizing Questions Criteria for choosing What students would like to focus on What is most important to the students What the students can explore further What students can use for a specific purpose: conducting an experiment, writing a paper, reading a book Directions for choosing Choose the 3 most important questions Choose the 3 questions you want/need to answer first Choose the 3 questions that most interest you

Next Steps Beginning of Unit/Lesson Student use questions to identify topics for research papers, essays, experiments and projects (PBL) Teacher uses questions to shape or refine lessons for the next day or whole unit Middle of Unit/Lesson Students use questions to shape their homework assignments Teachers reference student questions from beginning of unit to show how they are being answered

Next Steps End of unit/lesson Teacher references student questions from beginning of unit to see which still needs to be answered Questions aid in final assessment and review of student learning Your ideas?

Reflection The Socratic Method

Teacher Feedback The Question Formulation Technique helped to kick off the unit on political parties in my honors U.S. Government class. The Question Focus (Qfocus) was “Political Parties.” The students came up with very thoughtful questions. They did well with the QFT format and it was effective in getting them to engage the topic. I am posting their questions to keep track of the ones we answer throughout the unit. The QFT prepared students to be more engaged in reading and note-taking, during the second half of class, because their minds were already in questioning mode. The best surprise was…I had some of the best mid-lecture questions I’ve had all year! It is definitely a strategy that I’ll use again. Katie McCall, Matoaca High School, Chesterfield County, VA

Librarian Feedback This method increased student learning for a variety of lessons, but it was hard to see at first. The first time around they did struggle, and honestly, their feedback was more about how hard it was to create their own questions and that it was faster to just answer my questions. But as we did more activities like this, they really liked the power they had in directing their learning. Even though my students asked to change seats half-way through the year, when they realized that their QFT group would also change they didn't want to move. We didn't do QFT all the time, but the students had gotten to a place where they knew each others strengths/weaknesses and didn't want to start over. What was interesting was that one member of a group was a challenge- he argued, was at times disrespectful to peers and authority- but when a new student showed up and was "messing up their group“, the challenge student became the mediator and role model in order for the group to succeed. It was pretty amazing to see - and actually, very satisfying. -Julie Profita, Curtis Elementary, Chesterfield County Public Schools

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