1 Why students ask questions
Students ask lots of questions from an early age for a variety of reasons, including wanting to know more about the world around them. Often their questions are raised to help them make links with what they know.
Not all their questions are easy to answer and some do not need answering immediately, but all of them should be respected and taken seriously. This is not always easy when you are very busy or the question seems irrelevant to what you are teaching. However, acknowledging the question and answering it will show students that you value their request and their ideas. This will encourage them to continue to be curious about their surroundings. But to ignore or ridicule their efforts could have detrimental effects on their participation in science and belief in themselves as learners.
Activity 1: Analysing children’s questions
Look at this list of questions (adapted from Harlen, 1985) from students:
- What is a baby dog called?
- Why do I get sick?
- If I mix red and green paint, what colour will I get?
- How long do snakes live?
- Are there people on other planets?
- Why can I see myself in a pond?
- How does a car work?
- Why is the sky blue?
- If God made the world, who made God?
- When will it rain next?
How would you respond to each of these spontaneous questions? Which of these questions would you find easy to answer? Which would be harder to answer? Why do you think this?
Depending on the types of questions that students ask, there are strategies you can use to help answer the question and maintain students’ interest. Not all questions need to be answered immediately or at all. Not all questions are productive questions to lead to ‘hands on’ science, but nonetheless they need some kind of response; this may be that you do not know the answer and will find out, or you cannot answer because nobody knows the answer.
Some of these questions can be answered very easily, because the students just want the information. Others are not so simple. For example, your response to Question 9 depends on your own beliefs. For Question 5, you cannot say no and you would need to say something like ‘We do not know yet’. The other questions can all be answered, but some are more difficult for younger students, as they do not have enough experience to understand the explanation. With some careful further questioning by you, Question 3 (for example) could be used to start some investigations into aspects of the science involved. These are more productive types of questions as they hint at possible further action or investigations.
You may not even know the answers to some of the questions unless you do some research. Many teachers may fear letting their students raise their own questions in case they cannot answer the question for the students.
Why this approach is important