(Note: This is part 4 of a series of posts. To read the introduction to the series, click here.)
“Asking questions.” Well that sounds easy. Turns out, it isn’t. In fact, this is the hardest-to-master Science and Engineering Practice of them all. In my (very large) school district, students begin taking quarterly standardized science in third grade. When looking at every single science standard from 3rd-12th grades and separating those standards out by which Science and Engineering Practice was attached to them, the practice with the lowest overall success rate was asking questions. By a lot. The third NGSS Science and Engineering Practice I want to lean into is "Asking Questions." 
WHEN WILL I USE THIS PRACTICE?
It depends.
One of the best parts of the Next Generation Science Standards is that they pre-assign a Science and Engineering Practice to each content area. Most states have either adopted these standards or modeled their standards in this way. So if you teach in one of these states (as I do), when you use this practice will be decided for you. For example, it comes up twice in this particular 6th grade unit I taught last year: 
And once in this particular 4th grade unit I taught the year before that. 
If you teach in a state that hasn't adopted the NGSS at all, you'll simply have to decide for each standard if "Asking questions" is a good choice of practice for the standard or not. For example, I looked up four middle school standards from Florida, and two of them seem like good bets for asking questions.
WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS TO LEANING INTO THIS PRACTICE?
In the introduction to this series, I listed the eight reasons I recently heard teachers give for not having the kind of exciting, engaging, and dynamic science classrooms we dream of:
Some of these barriers may apply to your situation while others may not. Personally, at some point or another, I've dealt with all of these except for #6. I think the main barriers for the “asking questions” practice are #1 and #7 - it is just difficult to know what to even do. How in the world do you teach someone to ask questions? What is there to even teach? Can’t kids already do this? Isn’t answering questions supposed to be the point of learning!? I get it. To be honest, I’ve developed what it means to teach this practice completely on my own. I tried, I tested, and I tried again until I figured it out. And once I figured it out, I loved seeing this practice coming in my standards. I still do. Turns out, it can be incredibly engaging. So, what do you need to know about the practice of "Asking Questions" to make your classroom sparkle and sing? Let's lean in. STEP #1 - DECIDE WHAT WOULD MAKE FOR A GOOD (AND BAD) QUESTION FOR YOUR SPECIFIC STANDARD
What makes for a good (or bad) question differs from standard to standard. One of the standards I used as an example above was this one:
When I teach this particular “asking questions” standard, I focus on two features of good questions unique to it:
In short, the heart of this standard is knowing how scientific knowledge is generated and how it changes.
The other two example standards I used above are a bit different, I believe. 
These two standards are about comparing and contrasting (differentiating between) vocabulary items that are similar. In this case, I believe the heart of good questions is knowing what questions would (and would not) produce actionable information if answered.
I have found these to be two common goals of the “answering questions” practice, but I’m sure they aren’t the only two. Figuring out what makes for good and not-so-good questions is the key to getting off to a good start with the practice.
STEP #2 - TEACH THE CONTENT PART OF THE STANDARD FIRST
Let’s say I’m planning on giving this standard shown earlier a week of class time.
I mentally think of each class as having some “learning time” (where I teach them something in some way) and some sort of “working/practicing/doing” time. I think that’s common to many classes. If I’m devoting five days to this standard, the first couple of days will be devoted to getting students familiar with comets, asteroids, and meteoroids.
For some Science and Engineering Practices, content learning can come alongside learning the practice. For the “asking questions” practice, I have not found this to be so. Students can’t ask good questions about the content unless they know the details of that content first. The asking questions learning will certainly reinforce the content learning, but it can’t replace it.
STEP #3 - TEACH THE PRACTICE EXPLICITLYI think that sometimes the Science and Engineering Practices come across as HOW we're supposed to teach, not WHAT we're supposed to teach. So in my example here, the standard might come across to some readers as: 
Don't buy into that.
You need to teach students how to ask good scientific questions (and all the other practices). It isn't intuitive. We can't just teach students what they need to know; we have to teach them what to do. The practice comes up over and over again from kindergarten to 12th grade. Teach the practice explicitly. 
I would specifically devote the next day's learning time to asking questions. Students don't naturally know how to do that. They have to be taught.
If you'd care to see it, here are the slides I made to guide my lessons on the two sixth grade example standards, as well as a live recording of my class during the fourth grade standard. You'll notice that the materials themselves are pretty bare bones. I reviewed the content briefly, modeled an example (I do), had the students help me with a second example (we do), then work a third example with a partner (you do together), and finally demonstrate their learning on their own (you do alone). In doing so, they saw several examples of good and bad questions and thought through the process and the pitfalls several times, too.
It doesn't have to be fancy, but kids need instruction on the practices. They can't be expected to do them - much less learn content while doing them - without explicit instruction.
STEP 4 - EXTEND LEARNING BY HAVING STUDENTS IMPROVE QUESTIONS
Explicitly teaching the practice in step #3 is a good start, but one lesson on good and bad questions won’t usually be enough to have the learning “stick.” Upgrading from asking questions to improving questions is a great way to follow up and reinforce.
I typically reserve a day for refining/improving any practice when teaching a standard, but find I get my biggest bang-for-the-buck with those lessons with the “asking questions” practice. It just isn’t an easy one for kids to master. A few tips on teaching this kind of lesson:
Here also, are some sample lessons I use for this step.
STEP #5 - KEEP TEACHING AND PRACTICING THE CONTENT!
Don't forget, you still have teaching and practicing time!
Typically, the “asking questions” practice is attached to pretty technical content. All three of the examples I’ve used in this post are testament to that. Working on the asking questions practice doesn't have to shut down everything else. Kids won't learn everything through discovery and application. Keep giving them learning opportunities.
STEP #6 - KEEP AT IT!If this is totally new for you, it will feel uncomfortable at first to devote an entire lesson (or two!) merely to asking good questions. It will seem awkward, and you'll wonder if the kids are actually learning (they are!), and there will be ways you want to personalize and modify things. That's ok. Like everything in teaching, you'll know what to do when the time comes. You make a thousand decisions every day and fix a thousand little problems. This is no different. You'll figure it out. Over time, you'll get better at this, and so will the kids. Just wait until the third time this practice comes up in your curriculum, and you're teaching question-asking for the third time, and the kids give you a "yeah, we remember" look the entire time you're teaching them what to do. And then wait and see how free they feel when they know that sometimes science isn’t just about answers - it’s about questions. They'll love it. They'll know that for the next few days, when I go to science class, I'm going to really, truly get to express my curiosity in a new way. And they'll look forward to it. And they'll remember it. And so will you. So c'mon! Next time "Asking Questions" comes up in your science standards - go for it. Lean in.
This is part 4 of a 10-part series called "Leaning Into The Science and Engineering Practices for a More Dynamic Classroom." The rest of the series can be accessed here.
If you enjoyed this post, please share it!
Want to make sure you never miss a new post? Subscribe below for email notifications of new content.
Want to read more right now? You're in luck - you can browse past posts by category:
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
About MeI'm an award-winning teacher in the Atlanta area with experience teaching at every level from elementary school to college. Categories
All
|
