What is question-based learning?
Question-based learning is a type of investigation that guides the learner through the formation and refinement of a key question (or questions).
In this research model, students tend to focus on questions rather than answers – which means it highlights the quality, refinement, and impact of the questions themselves. It also means that questions can be graded, graded, published, and celebrated in the way education has traditionally graded answers.
In What is the purpose of a question?, I looked at the concept of question quality from the perspective of question function or question purpose: “If the first step in evaluating a question is to first understand its purpose, the second is to ensure that it achieves that purpose. If not, it’s “bad”. …
“To be more abstract, a good question creates thought – more questions. Better questions. It clears and reveals. It causes reflection, reflection, rethinking, and maybe even some kind of hope. A bad question stops thinking. It confuses and obscures. It creates doubts.
Two of the most common functions of a question are to evaluate knowledge (evaluative) or to stimulate thinking (rhetorical). This can be further broken down into (almost infinitely many) sub-categories.
Rhetorical questioning
Purpose: to stimulate thought
Thinking cause causing emotions (for effect)
stimulate thought to stimulate further / extended thought
stimulate thought during dialogical interactions
That sounds like “essential questions” that also serve as an orientation aid for learning. In contrast to essential questions, however, guiding questions are refined and improved during the learning process (be it a single activity or over the course of a project, etc.).
See also 20 types of critical thinking questions
Questions as an evaluation
As well as being a driving force behind the investigation, questions can be used as an effective assessment strategy. And to be clear, I mean, the question is the evaluation element rather than the answer that questions in general are supposed to bring up. In other words, a student’s question can be more insightful than any answer they offer to a question you created.
In the same article I offered some examples.
“When a student asks when a battle took place while studying Civil War, we can sense that he is trying to understand a particular detail. When you ask why soldiers fought a certain way, they are trying to make sense of the strategy.
“If a student asks nothing at all – well, that could ‘reveal’ a lot of things. It could be because of background knowledge, self-confidence or commitment, or that they really have no room or need to ask – or simply that they are currently taking on a passive learning role.
“When they ask why the war was waged, they make sense of very complex macro-concepts, including cause and effect.
“When they ask, ‘Is this going to be put to the test?’, They are more concerned with academic performance than with the content itself, much less with critical thinking and inquiries.
“But another reason these questions are good is because of their source and purpose: a student clearing up their own confusion or following their curiosity. An answer is some kind of climax or performance – an end, while a question is a beginning that can go anywhere.
“Questions are the heartbeat of every classroom for critical thinking. The source, frequency, and quality of the questions (not the answers) in your classroom are among the best sources of data available to any teacher of all grade levels and content. “
The process of question-based learning
1. Select a topic
2. Review the clarification section for QBL
This is useful after the topic or skill has been selected so that their focus can focus on that topic or skill rather than just inserting it into an activity that the teacher instructs them to do. Question-based learning is a learning strategy, not a process designed to overshadow ideas, thinking and research.
The better QBL is made, the less noticeable it becomes.
3. Asking questions
In this phase, the students develop a brainstorming session over a period of three to five minutes and mark those who “stand out” for them at the end of the given time. At this point, you can ask students to ask questions out loud and use this early education and improvement on the key question or questions as a “crowdsource”.
Students know they are “done” with this stage when they have at least one
What are the characteristics of a good lead question? A key quality question is neither too broad nor too narrow; is “answerable” (or meaningfully addressable) within the period of the QBL process (a class, a week, a project, etc.); it’s open; it suggests, justifies, or otherwise “deserves” careful study and / or is “worth knowing”; its relative complexity, depth, breadth or knowledge requirements are accessible to the student
4. Gain new knowledge (i.e. learn)
The process students use to “study” is ideally dictated by the circumstances: time / duration of QBL; Grade level; digital versus physical learning environment; relative complexity of topic / skill / question etc.
Students can learn through direct guidance, watch a video, listen to a podcast, take a course, and combine that subsequent reading, ongoing research, etc. The possibilities here are of course numerous.
5. Refine / improve question based on learning
This can be done during step 4 or as a separate step.
(If, after the knowledge acquisition phase, there are no clear ways to refine or improve the question, students can also add contextualizing “good guiding questions”.)
Important: There should be notes and other ongoing documentation about how the question or questions changed, along with the causes of those changes. For example, if a student with the key question “How do tornadoes arise? ? “or” Why do tornadoes only develop in certain parts of the world? “
They then documented the knowledge gained and its source, which elicited the refinement of the question. It could be: “When I saw a documentary about storms, I learned that the environmental conditions necessary for tornadoes are actually relatively rare, which prompted me to change my central question by …”
6. Reflect
At this stage, students formally reflect on the learning process, including:
Where learning ‘began’ and ‘ended’
How the question (s) changed and why – or if not, why could it be so.
Source, impact, duration and general quality of your key question (s)
What they “learned” – in terms of content or skills or the nature of learning and research, their own metacognitive habits, and so on.
7. Document and curate
Here the students document the actual survey process as a whole – probably in an explanatory letter with a narrative tone. This is a critical step, because the aim is for the students to internalize this research process – which means that they consciously reflect on the process more strictly in terms of content.
Students should also curate important artifacts, events, paths, questions, or other “parts” of the learning process. This can take the form of a concept map, a short paper, a video, a physical or digital portfolio, or even a podcast.
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