1. The Right Question Institute
Future Ready
Research:
Essential Student Questions!
CUE 2018
March 15, 2018
The Right Question Institute
Cambridge, MA

2. Acknowledgments
We are deeply grateful to the John Templeton Foundation and The Hummingbird Fund for their generous support of the Right Question Institute’s Million Classrooms Campaign.

3. Overview What is the importance of questions for research
Why should students ask their own research questions
How to get students early own to work on research
When students develop their own research questions there is more engagement ownership and deeper learning

4. We’re Tweeting!
@RightQuestion
#QFT

5. "There is no learning without having to pose a question."
-Richard Feynman, Nobel-Prize- winning physicist

6. “We must teach students how to think in questions, how to manage ignorance.” (p. 176)
-Stuart Firestein
Former Chairman of the Department of Biology at Columbia University

7. College Presidents on What Students Should Learn in College
“The primary skills should be analytical skills of interpretation and inquiry. In other words, know how to frame a question.”
Leon Botstein, President of Bard College
“…the best we can do for students is have them ask the right questions.”
Nancy Cantor, Chancellor of University of Illinois
The New York Times, August 4, 2002

8. Yet…only 27% of students believe college taught them to ask their own questions
A. Head, Project Information Literacy at University of Washington, 2016

9. But, the problem begins long before college...

10. Percentage of Basic Skill Attainment
Sources
Data on question-asking based on parent and teacher feedback

11. Percentage of Basic Skill Attainment
Sources
Data on question-asking based on parent and teacher feedback

12. “Research usually starts with a question, and formulating that question can be the hardest part of the process.”
Source:

13. Sacred Cows

15. Bloom’s Taxonomy

16. Changes for Teachers From To Asking questions for students to answer
Students generating their own questions
Trying to improve students questions by rewording them
Students improving their own questions

17. The QFT, on one slide… Question Focus Produce Your Questions
Follow the rules
Number your questions
Improve Your Questions
Categorize questions as Closed or Open-ended
Change questions from one type to another
Prioritize Your Questions
Share & Discuss Next Steps
Reflect
Ask as many questions as you can
Do not stop to discuss, judge or answer
Record exactly as stated
Change statements into questions
Closed-Ended:
Answered with “yes,” “no” or one word
Open-Ended: Require longer explanation

18. Some students have difficulties producing good research questions.
Question Focus:
Some students have difficulties producing good research questions.

19. Exploring Classroom Examples

20. NGSS Engineering Design Process: Asking Questions and Defining Problems
Grades K-2
Grades 3-5
Grades 6-8
Grades 9-12
Based on observations to find more information about the world
What would happen if variables changed?
testable and non-testable questions
Cause and effect relationships
Empirical evidence to answer
Careful observation or refining of phenomena, models, or results
Identify or clarify evidence
IV and DV relationships
Challenge an argument or interpretation of a data set
Careful observation or unexpected results
Examining models or a theory
Determine relationships (quantitative, IV, DV)
Refine a model
Assumptions, limitations, constraints
Source: NSTA - SEP

21. Classroom Example: Pre-Kindergarten, Science
Teacher: Andrea Serino, Melrose, MA
Topic: Gingerbread cookies
Purpose: Use students’ questions for an experiment
Link to NGSS: K-2 - Ask and/or identify questions that can be answered by an investigation

22. What happens if a gingerbread cookie is put into water?
Students read gingerbread stories
Used a gingerbread person as the Question Focus
Group chose a priority question to explore further: What happens if a gingerbread cookie is put into water?

23. What happens if a gingerbread cookie is put into water?
Made predictions then did an experiment to explore this question. Found out the gingerbread sank in the water.
Class investigated a new question: What would happen if they added soap to the water to make it bubbly?
Found that the gingerbread cookie floated for 10 seconds, then sank, became soggy, and eventually fell apart

24. Pre-Kindergarteners as Scientists
Asked questions
Hypothesized (made predictions)
Tested their predictions through experiments
Formulated and explored new questions from what they learned

25. Classroom Example: 4th Grade
Teacher: Deirdre Brotherson, Hooksett, NH Topic: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper, a book about a young girl with cerebral palsy Purpose: For students to identify an extension project

26. Question Focus
Cerebral Palsy

27. Priority Questions
6. Is it always the oldest kid who gets cerebral palsy? 7. Are there different types of cerebral palsy? 9. If twins are born do they both have cerebral palsy?
10. Are wheelchairs
expensive?
12. Can robotics be
used to help?
17. Can famous people
have cerebral palsy?

28. Selected Student Questions
What is cerebral palsy?
How do you get cerebral palsy?
Can we help someone with cerebral palsy?
How can we help someone with cerebral palsy?
Do all the kids in a family have cerebral palsy?
Is it always the oldest kid who gets cerebral palsy?
Are there different types of cerebral palsy?
Can I play sports if I have cerebral palsy?
If twins are born do they both have cerebral palsy?
Are wheelchairs expensive?
Do people use other things to help people?
Can robotics be used to help?
Do people adopt kids with cerebral palsy?
How long do people live?
Can it get better?
Do you always know if someone has cerebral palsy?
Can famous people have cerebral palsy?
Are there other books about other people?

29. Next Steps:
Students chose one question to research and then present on.
Student questions led to projects about:
Twins
Robotics
A Beauty queen who has cerebral palsy
Wheel chair improvements
Music therapy
Review of other books and movies
Lesson about how to treat people

30. Teacher’s Observations:
Students got to work right away
No one struggled with what topic to do
Struggling students felt successful
Students shared resources and talents with classmates
Class was engaged during varied presentations
Questions asked of presenters were high quality
After presentations, we all walked away with more

31. Classroom Example: 7th Grade
Teacher: Nicole Bolduc, Ellington, CT Topic: “The Universe and Its Stars” Unit Purpose: To engage students in setting the learning agenda for the unit

32. Question Focus:
Students watched videos of dramatic tide change in Cape Cod, Alaska, and Canada

33. Selected Student Questions
Why does tide change?
How is tide created?
Can tide change be a problem in the future?
How does earth’s rotation cause the tide to change?
Does global warming affect tides?
Does the sun have any part in the rise and retreat of tides?
Where does the water go to?
Does temperature have anything to do with tides?  
Do tides occur because of the gravitational pull of the moon?
Does tilt have anything to do with tides?
Do the phases of the moon come into play with the tides?
Does this happen on other planets?
How do other planets affect it?
How do fish & wildlife survive when the tide is always changing?
Are the tides opposite in Florida and Mexico? (b/c they share the Gulf of Mexico)
If the moon disappeared, would there be no tides?
How come the tide changes greatly in some places but not others?
What would happen if the tide didn’t change?
How far can high tide go?
Why are tides important to the earth?
How do tides affect people?

34. Next Steps: The Driving Questions Board and the “Parking Lot”
Students draw initial models, give feedback, and make predictions.
Students experience a series of scientific investigations.
At the end of the unit, the Driving Question board is “published” in poster format.

35. Student Reflections

36. Student Reflections
“Mrs. B. almost tricks us into learning science.” “At the beginning of the year, we were asking questions just because we had to get to a certain number. Now we ask questions because that’s what we’re actually going to learn about so what you ask really matters.”

37. Classroom Example: Experimental Design
Teacher: Allison Gest
Topic: Running Water
Purpose: Support or refute a claim through planning and conducting an investigation; revise the experiment
Link to NGSS: Asking questions to refine a model, explanation, or problem.

38. Qfocus: Design of a team’s experiment
Scientist claim:
“Adding a dam to a water system causes a decrease in aquatic life downstream.”

39. Results: Revision of design based on questions asked...

40. Classroom Example: 7th Grade
Teacher: Christine Murphy, Hyde Park, NY Topic: Digital citizenship and orientation to chromebooks Purpose: To introduce students to the QFT process and establish classroom questioning routines and culture

41. Question Focus
Teens are becoming addicted to technology, making them isolated from the real world.

42. Selected Student Questions
Why are they addicted to technology?
What apps make them addicted?
Do they know what they’re missing out on?
What would teens be like without technology?
Do they feel left out?
Would they be isolated from life if they didn’t have tech?
Would they want to be social with friends instead of tech?
Does it make their health messed up?
Are parents giving their teens too much technology?
Should we put a limit on teens’ tech time?
Is there something in the software that is addicting?
Should sports be put in more at school instead of tech?
Should tech be taken away at home earlier at night?
Why is the tech making them isolated?
Is it parental fault for the addiction?
Is it the fault of social media?
How can it be stopped?
Is it the teens’ fault?

43. Next Steps The Driving Question Board The “Parking Lot”
Ongoing student choice projects

44. Classroom Example: High School
Teacher: Daniel Fouts, Des Plaines, IL Topic: 12th Grade Government unit on the American presidency at moments of crisis Purpose: To engage students at the start of the unit and to help students select a topic for an independent project

45. Question Focus
“Nearly all men can handle adversity; but if you really want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

46. Student Questions How does power challenge one’s morality?
What kind of man can handle adversity?
Should everyone have some type of power?
What can power tell us about a man’s character?
Does power make people corrupt?
How can power be obtained by adversity?
What if the person who is qualified for power doesn’t attain it?
Why are some people affected by power differently?
If adversity supposedly makes you stronger, does that mean that power makes you weaker?
How is a man’s power tested?
What is considered power?
What defines good character?
How can we ensure that the good men get the power?

47. Next Steps:
In groups, students prioritized by choosing their consensus favorite question to add to the class list
Each student selected l question from the class list to work on throughout the unit
Students answered their question using research and knowledge from the unit in a two-page reflection paper
Students shared their reflections in a class discussion on the final day of the unit

48. The QFT, Information Literacy, and the Research Process
Connie Williams
National Board Certified Teacher Librarian
Petaluma, CA

49. Research is a Process Research comes out of an information need.
We encounter information needs all the time.
No matter what our information need is: the process is the same
We utilize inquiry questions all the time:
What movie should we see today?
What computer [bike, phone] should I buy?
How will I complete all my homework on time?
What do I need to do in order to get to college?
Who are the 3 most influential authors of the 20th Century?
The only way to help kids want to complete the research you have assigned...is to help them create their own compelling questions.

50. Head out to the great beyond…and question your sources
Teaching Information Literacy
Teaching Information literacy within a content area gives practice to the steps of the research process.
Our task: to teach those steps.
Turning information need statements:
I want to go to Iceland
Write an essay on the French Revolution
into questions, allows us to focus on what we consider to be important within that topic.
Dig & Dive into the topic to gather content information
Head out to the great beyond…and question your sources

51. Example: High School Debate Team
Context: Students are preparing to debate. They want authentic TRUE information. They want me to tell them Exactly. Where. That. is.
Question Focus: “Resolved that the United States screen immigrants for extremist ideological views.”
Student Questions:
•What are extremist views?
•How are we screening now?
•What kinds of extremist views are there?
•What about homegrown extremist views?
•How might we screen immigrants differently?
•What would happen if we didn’t let anyone in anymore?
•Don’t we already have a good system?
•Why are we re-building something that isn’t broken?
•How do we know if it’s broken or not?
Next Steps: Student questions for the evaluation of sources:
Who wrote this?
For what purpose was this written?
How do they want me to feel?
How do they want me to act?
What are the sources of their numbers, charts, or other evidence?
Can we trace them back to their creator?… and then question the purpose and authority of those numbers also.

52. Classroom Example: College Biology
Professor: Emily Westover, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Brandeis University
Topic: Molecular Mechanisms of Disease (~30 students)
Purpose:
Students will use questions to launch into mini-research topics

53. Students were assigned background reading before class
Question Focus
Students were assigned background reading before class
HbS is the molecular cause of Sickle Cell Disease, a heterogeneous and devastating disease

54. Classroom Example: College Biology
Groups generated questions about Sickle Cell Disease and chose their top 3 questions
Each group chose a question to research
Students researched the literature and made a 15- minute presentation on their findings

55. Classroom Example: College Biology
Students reported the QFT helped them feel ownership of the assignment and generated excitement during the research process
The QFT helped Professor Westover assess the level of students’ content knowledge and conceptual understanding and informed her instruction

56. In the Age of Google…
“How should you respond when you get powerful new tools for finding answers?
Think of harder questions.”
- Clive Thompson, Journalist and Technology Blogger

57. Join our Educator Network at RightQuestion.org for…
Templates you can use tomorrow in class
Lesson planning tools
Classroom Examples
Instructional Videos
Forums and Discussions with other Educators
Other free downloadable resources

58. Source: www.rightquestion.org
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