“The question holds the lantern.” John O’Donohue, Celtic poet
Have you ever botched a great inquiry lesson using a poorly planned sequence of questions? Here’s an epic example of my own palm-to-forehead struggle to facilitate learning using the wrong questions.
During my first-, or second-year teaching IB science, I created an opportunity for sixth graders in my classes to collaborate with sixth graders from a school in Sydney, Australia. Some quick outreach through the IB network of schools connected the two classrooms, ours located at 6,500 ft elevation, and theirs, at sea-level. Our goal as scientific partners was to boil water and compare results.
Students developed simple procedures, sharing them electronically across the miles, attending carefully to details that would affect the reliability of their work. Basic research supported the development of hypotheses that included a predicted boiling point of 1000 C.
Despite careful measurements, patience, and multiple trials the big experiment revealed surprising results. As student groups in Colorado recorded lower boiling points than expected, I began asking questions, but instead of my questions “holding the lantern,” for deeper learning, they added confusion and reinforced misconceptions. I asked clunky close-ended questions about results and tried too hard to increase student curiosity about differences in temperature readings. Student after student concluded in their lab notebooks that yep, the boiling point of water the world over appeared to be 1000 C. Clearly, I needed to devise better strategies for facilitating inquiry learning.
The development of inquiry questions plays a critical role in MYP unit plans. Questions lead the way towards three distinct learning goals: acquisition of information, development of conceptual understanding, and transfer of ideas from familiar to unfamiliar situations. It is by way of well-crafted questions that students take charge of their learning and engage as thinkers and problem-solvers when facing the unexpected. If I could orchestrate a redo on this international experiment, I might use the following question to spark curiosity and access prior knowledge: Here’s a fun fact: It takes several minutes longer to boil an egg in Colorado than it does in Sydney. Why do you suppose that is?
To support conceptual understanding, posing the following question might be helpful: If we could shrink down to the size of water molecules, what changes would we observe happening when water reaches its boiling point?
And wouldn’t it be interesting to encourage dialogue among our young scientists using the following question: Are there conditions that can affect water’s “boiling point,” or is this a fixed point that never changes? Share your thinking. How might you test your ideas in the lab?
Designing and delivering elegant questions is truly the fine art of teaching. If you come to Colorado and eat a flat, gummy cake in a local restaurant, chances are good that the chef was a former student from this class. My apologies… I am still learning.
High Altitude Learning 