Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Strategies to promote Belonging while Asking Questions:

One way that I have worked to ensure a sense of belonging while students are asking questions is to make sure that the space feels safe and that students feel as though there are truly no ‘stupid questions’. Of course it is also important to help students at a high school level understand a scientific question that can be investigated. If the classroom culture is there, students may feel more willing to take risks. In a positive classroom environment (that utilizes SEL, student centered and restorative approaches), students will feel more safe and therefore more willing to ask questions. All of this must be paired with plenty of opportunities to ask questions. To learn more please click here.

Strategies to create a Learning Orientation for Asking questions:

Structure and support is the name of the game here! There are a variety of ways to facilitate a questioning process. When provided with structured opportunities students will likely produce genuine and thoughtful scientific questions. Some ideas for these structures could be a questioning protocol, KWL chart, a classroom parking lot, question brainstorm and more. Many of these techniques can connect students to other content areas if you use reading comprehension and questioning strategies. Questioning is a skill that is often overlooked and students will most certainly need practice and modeling- so don’t forget to show students how it’s done! To learn more please click here.

Supporting Autonomy for Asking Questions

Science is generally a collaborative effort though oftentimes, individual students are asked to develop their own area of interest or research question. It is important that from elementary school on, students are encouraged to ask their own questions and pursue the answers to those questions. Obviously there are constraints in a school setting so it's even more important to provide structure and reasoning to help students keep their questions focused and research-able. Some ways to do this are to make some projects/labs/assessments open-ended, use talk moves that help students generate questions and constantly having students reflect on their questions using criteria for focusing. To learn more please click here.

Keeping Relevance when Asking Questions

The NGSS framework emphasizes phenomena to center instruction around and these phenomena can be relevant for student learning. Relevance in the case of asking questions means providing students with phenomena that connect to the students lives in some way so students can deepen their connection to their community while also questioning critically. You can encourage students to ask meaningful questions by allowing students time to explore unfamiliar phenomena or problems. In addition, if a topic is more familiar students can practice their skills in refining questions to be more investigatable. Lastly, giving opportunities to have “free style” questioning time means they can bring any questions that they have about the natural world and have time to investigate them. To learn more please click here.

Standard Name: HS-ETS1-1 Engineering Design

Standard: Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants

Observable Features of Student Performance by the end of the Course: 

1. Identifying the problem to be solved

• Students analyze a major global problem. In their analysis, students: 

  • Describe* the challenge with a rationale for why it is a major global challenge

  • Describe*, qualitatively and quantitatively, the extent and depth of the problem and its major consequences to society and/or the natural world on both global and local scales if it remains unsolved; and

  • Document background research on the problem from two or more sources, including research journals. 

2. Defining the process or system boundaries, and the components of the process or system

• In their analysis, students identify the physical system in which the problem is embedded, including the major elements and relationships in the system and boundaries so as to clarify what is and is not part of the problem. 

• In their analysis, students describe* societal needs and wants that are relative to the problem (e.g., for controlling CO2 emissions, societal needs include the need for cheap energy). 

3. Defining the criteria and constraints

• Students specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for acceptable solutions to the problem

Standard Name: HS-LS3-1 Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits

Standard: Ask questions to clarify relationships about the role of DNA and chromosomes in coding the instructions for characteristic traits passed from parents to offspring.

Observable Features of Student Performance by the end of the Course: 

1. Addressing phenomena or scientific theories

• Students use models of DNA to formulate questions, the answers to which would clarify: 

  • The cause and effect relationships (including distinguishing between causal and correlational relationships) between DNA, the proteins it codes for, and the resulting traits observed in an organism; 

  • That the DNA and chromosomes that are used by the cell can be regulated in multiple ways; and 

  • The relationship between the non-protein coding sections of DNA and their functions (e.g., regulatory functions) in an organism. 

2. Evaluating empirical testability

• Students’ questions are empirically testable by scientists

Standard Name: HS-PS4-2 Waves and their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer

Standard: Evaluate questions about the advantages of using digital transmission and storage of information.

Observable Features of Student Performance by the end of the Course: 

1. Addressing phenomena or scientific theories 

• Students evaluate the given questions in terms of whether or not answers to the questions would: 

  • Provide examples of features associated with digital transmission and storage of information (e.g., can be stored reliably without degradation over time, transferred easily, and copied and shared rapidly; can be easily deleted; can be stolen easily by making a copy; can be broadly accessed); and

• In their evaluation of the given questions, students: 

  • Describe* the stability and importance of the systems that employ digital information as they relate to the advantages and disadvantages of digital transmission and storage of information; and 

  • Discuss the relevance of the answers to the question to real-life examples (e.g., emailing your homework to a teacher, copying music, using the internet for research, social media). 

2. Evaluating empirical testability

• Students evaluate the given questions in terms of whether or not answers to the questions would provide means to empirically determine whether given features are advantages or disadvantages.