Thinking Out Loud: Inquisitive Classrooms

(This article is part of a growing series of Inquisitive Classrooms, previous posts are linked at the bottom)

I have enjoyed reading the thoughts of those commenting on my ramblings around inquisitive classrooms on LinkedIn and it has continued to be a thread of discussion with others at work. A few colleagues have approached me and suggested I come and see one of their groups who are particularly inquisitive which I am excited to do. 

At lunch I mulled over with our Assistant Head T&L about whether our classrooms had actually never been chattier with our love of think-pair-share and dynamic questioning; but we didn’t really find an answer. I can’t remember my own experiences at school clearly enough to know whether we were inquisitive independently. Is my drive for these thought provoking questions from our students actually indicative of us smashing the pedagogy and me thinking… what’s next?

I have been thinking about how I am going to increase the inquisitiveness of my classroom and so went back to the comments on LinkedIn. These are my thoughts about other people’s brilliant ideas that they generously shared:

1. We need to show students how to have a discussion - I was prompted to the ‘habits of discussion’ or to train them with coaching questions;

Wow, there is so much here! I love this idea of teaching them how to have a discussion... this notion seems to land particularly acutely with me in the days of social media. Our students may have grown up being cut out of meal time discussions or their parents may have placed a screen between them and the discussion... they might not have ever had this type of thing modelled to them. I have a lot of research to do here, but I found some stuff from Teach Like a Champion to start me off.

2. We need to have deep subject knowledge to facilitate the discussion and to be able to extend the questioning;

I also resonate with this idea of deep subject knowledge - I talk to my trainee teachers about making sure they prepare questions to ask the class as this can be quite exposing and daunting when you are new and learning your craft. I am 10 years in and still sometimes struggle to come up with purposeful, useful questions when caught off guard... If I am struggling, why should I expect so much of my students?

3. Think-pair-share is the bridge to answering your questions and promoting their thinking. Lower stakes and less pressured.

Absolutely - but is it really getting them asking interesting questions that extend their knowledge? How often does a think-pair-share go back to just being one or two students volunteering their ideas/discussions?

4. Students need to have ownership of the learning to engage in asking questions, they have to care about the content or have a personal perspective

This is very accurate - why should they care about what we are teaching them? How do we make them care so that they come up with interesting questions? I think there are two bits here to do some more work on: one is the curriculum. Is our curriculum interesting and engaging and making space for their questions? Two, are we selling it to them in a fun engaging way that leaves space for questions?

5. Students may feel differently about asking questions depending on the audience - informal spaces/approaches may elicit more genuine enquiry than if students feel they need to perform for the teacher. Students may fear judgements from teachers and peers which limits their questions

Ooo I don’t know how we manage this one which is exciting. How do I create the spaces that make them feel confident to ask the questions? I can start with the obvious of praising them for their questions and being explicit about it being a safe space. I feel I have some research to do here…

6. Potentially teachers inhibit questions because they want to control the space/pace

Nail on the head here - us teachers love control don’t we? One big thing that is hanging over my head in all of this is; am I pursuing something that we don’t really need? Do our classrooms need more questions or are my colleagues doing the right thing by controlling the questions and getting through the content. My gut tells me that I am pursuing the right thing…

So, that’s quite a lot to process from a couple of humble Linkedin posts. So what is actionable next for me?

Quick wins;

• I am going to start talking to my classes about questioning and why I think it is important they take control of asking questions - can they tell me why they don’t ask independent questions?

• I am going to explore the idea of training my students and investigate ‘habits of discussion’ in more detail. I found this amazing article by Doug Lemov (Teach Like a Champion) which has a video and explains how to build skills of discussion https://teachlikeachampion.org/blog/rolling-out-habits-of-discussion-with-ipswich-academys-ben-hall/;

• I am going to go and see more classrooms where the teacher feels there are genuine questions and try and unpick why it is working there.

Long term goals;

• I am going to speak to our Deputy Head Academic about doing an assembly with the kids and raising awareness of learning ownership;

• I am going to dive more into the research around this topic; for and against the inquisitive classroom; explore barriers to students asking questions and strategies to change the culture of my classroom. 

What do you think about my drive for inquisitive classrooms? 

Have you noticed a lack of student questions in your classroom?

Is your classroom already inquisitive? If so, how?

Do you feel pressure to cover content and feel that if students started asking inquisitive questions it would throw your already pressured timings out, to the detriment of everyone else?

Big questions….