Some studies show four year olds ask as many as 200 to 300 questions a day.
Warren Berger author of a more beautiful question says that kids
ask an average of 40,000 questions between the ages of two and five.
But you also found that over the next couple of years, as kids go to school,
the number of questions they ask declines.
My reading suggests that toddlers asked the most questions and we
adults ask the very least at around 20 a day, depending on our jobs.
And mothers of course asked the most at around a hundred a day.
I would argue though, that those questions probably aren't very deep, but rather
things like, have you got your lunch?
Have you brushed your teeth?
Have you finished?
Have you done your homework?
Questions are the foundation of all learning.
Scientists ask questions all the time.
They ask things, like what will happen if?
These are the types of questions, that get the old juices flowing.
Now as educators, the questions we ask students allow us to access
their understanding where the gaps are and the misconceptions.
In their learning and in their knowledge.
And then the idea is to use those misunderstandings or those gaps
in their knowledge, to drive our planning and the learning experiences
to help those kids fill those gaps.
Questions also help us to determine during the reflection.
If we've met our intentions, whether or not our lessons were
successful and where we can improve and where we can capitalize.
But questions,
most importantly.
drive learning and curiosity.
Think about it for a moment.
If no one ever asked you a question, what would go through your head?
It's the questions we ask ourselves and others, the drive knowledge
or the pursuit of knowledge, or even just get us thinking.
Inquiry based learning centers around questioning.
If you listened to last week's episode with Jessica Vance you
would have noticed just how her language is peppered with questions.
Questions form the basis of any inquiry classroom.
Those questions
drive the inquiry process and through the inquiry process, we
uncover the answers to questions.
Questions that drive curiosity and the uncovering of knowledge and understanding
are not those little simple ones.
They require us to go deep and to look for answers.
They're not shallow to which the answers can easily be found things
like, when was the light bulb invented, or who invented electricity?
These are just easy to look up and find the answer.
But questions like, why do you think leaves change color in autumn?
Or how does water get to our homes and out of our taps or faucets
for those, for you in the US?
Those require some digging to find the answers.
Now you might like to follow blooming curious, because in next week's episode,
I'll chat about the strategies to record children's wanderings and understanding.
So you'll not want to miss out on that because I'll come with some
interesting hands-on strategies.
So you would have noticed then that those questions I just asked,
started with why and how, they are more like the types of questions we
want to ask in an inquiry classroom.
Or they might be the types of questions that we want to use to get kids thinking.
Then, there are the what if and the, I wonder questions that
are great catalysts for creative thinking and for problem-solving.
Things like what if the sun stopped shining?
What if there was no more school?
What if everyone stopped following rules.
I wonder why geese fly a V-shape I wonder why snails have shells, but slugs don't.
In Kath Murdoch's book Getting Personal with Inquiry Learning Kath
agrees, that questions are central to inquiry, but she says that sometimes
it can take a while for a learner to find the right question to ask.
And that sometimes an initial question doesn't actually drive the
inquiry, because a student might simply be driven to want to find
out more about something without a question driving the investigation.
And that's of course, perfectly acceptable and encouraged.
That at these times, questions will arise as the inquiry unfolds.
And this is also why it's important that educators have explicitly
taught the structure and impact of different kinds of questions.
And this has been it's handy to have a bank of question starters
that support learners in choosing and refining their questions.
In this publication of Kath's, Getting Personal with Inquiry Learning, it gives
you lots of examples of questions to use, and I'll link to the book in the
show notes, just know that it is an affiliate link to a great Ozzie bookstore.
Now getting into the habit of asking deep questions can be quite
tricky, especially if it's not something that's part of your makeup.
And the good news is that like all skills that could be easily acquired
with practice and to help you I've put together a list of question starters.
Just to get you started.
And you can get this list either on the blog post that accompanies
this episode, or go to resources dot edslessons.com forward slash questions.
I'll put the link in the show notes for you
so you can just get it there after you've listened to this episode.
Now the process of looking for the answers to questions takes us on a journey.
And the typical journey we go on to uncover the answers is something like
Kath Murdoch again, her inquiry cycle.
It's a six step cycle that takes us on a path from tuning in all the way
to taking action or taking it further.
And I have a blog post and a resource that takes you through the step-by-step
process of inquiry, which once again, I'll link in the show notes for you
so make sure to check that out.
Now learning never stops really.
Even when your assignment is complete or the questions have been
answered, guess what happens then?
You see what I just did?
I ask the question.
That's right.
We ask more questions.
Questions to help the student learn about their learning, how they came
to their conclusions and whether or not there's more to think about
and more questions to answer.
Because perhaps what the have is, is not sufficient for them to have
a deep understanding of the concept.
It really reminds me of a student
I recently worked with.
We were doing a social studies assignment and I was explicitly
teaching the process of asking questions and finding and recording
answers and this particular student.
And this is typical of so many kids put in minimal effort because he
just wanted to get the task finished.
And so when it came to actually writing the report, he was unable to articulate.
Or write a short paragraph to demonstrate his understanding.
Simply because he didn't spend the time to get into the details.
And what was great about this is when I asked him those deep questions that
take learning further he started to understand that the reason he couldn't
produce a decent piece of work that demonstrated his understanding of the
topic that he chose was because he didn't do the research to begin with.
This really struck me because it was out of his learning about the way he
tackled his learning that he gained the most and consequently applied himself
much better to future assignments.
And it's this kind of teaching and learning that I believe makes
questioning and inquiry based, learning so powerful for children.
So here's your challenge as you go through next week.
First of all, you've got to go and download the list of question starters.
And then really get tuned into how often you ask questions and the
types of questions you're asking.
And then just casually as children are going through the day and their lessons
start asking those deeper questions.
And just see what happens and I'd really like to know how you get on with this.
So really seriously, send me an email you can do so at contact@edlessons.com
and tell me, and also let me know what you're struggling with and
perhaps that can be a future episode.
But all learning starts with curiosity.
And I've got a free guide for you, how to encourage natural curiosity, and you
can download that from edslessons.com and see how you can nurture curiosity
just in your every day activities.
And in fact, there's some question starters in that free eguide too.
Now guys, I just want to thank you all for listening
it really means the world to me that you chose to listen to this podcast
out of all the thousands out there.
So thank you so much your ongoing support really keeps me going.
And if any part of today's episode resonated with you or you find something
useful then please tap on the share button and share it with a friend or a colleague.
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You have to go to the show where you can see the list of all the episodes.
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That's what it looks like on apple anyway, and it's probably quite
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And with all that I'll love and leave you until next week.
And until then, remember, stay blooming, curious and ask questions.