3 Categorising students’ questions
Learning how to handle students’ questions needs you to extend your understanding of the types of questions that students raise and develop your skills in handling these. Table 1 (adapted from Harlen et al., 2003) lists the five key categories of questions that students ask.
| Category | Categorisation of children’s question | Children’s question |
|---|---|---|
| (a) | Questions that are really statements expressed as a questions | Why are birds so clever they can weave nests with their beaks? |
| (b) | Questions requiring simple factual answers | Where was the bird’s nest found? |
| (c) | Questions requiring more complex answers | Why do some birds nest in trees and some on the ground? |
| (d) | Questions that lead to enquiry by the student(s) | What is the nest made of? |
| (e) | Philosophical questions | Why are birds made so that they can fly and not other animals? |
Learning to recognise the categories of questions listed in Table 1 takes practice.
Activity 2: Ways to handle student questions
A teacher brought some caterpillars on a branch into the classroom to give their students the opportunity to raise questions about what they saw. You could also read the key resource ‘Talk for learning’ before you do the task to extend your understanding of why talking is so important in the classroom to help learning. Relate what you read to your experience of doing this task with a colleague.
Look at the list of questions raised by the students below. Then use the table in Resource 1 to categorise the questions and think how you might handle the question. You may want to do this activity with a colleague because it is often only when you start to talk with someone else that you develop your ideas and thinking about such an issue.
- Why are they called caterpillars?
- Are they worms?
- What do they eat?
- Can they see me?
- Will they turn into butterflies?
- What do they feel like?
- How does it change into a pupa?
- How old are they?
- Why are they so wiggly?
- Why do some things turn into something else, like tadpoles into frogs?
 Pause for thought
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Look at a Resources 2 and 3, which summarise the ways to handle each type of question and give possible ways to respond to the questions above. This is to help you become more skilled at answering students’ questions, or rather handling students’ questions. Practice identifying the types of questions and how to handle them by listening to your students and giving them opportunities to raise questions. Students should then be encouraged to investigate the more productive questions themselves by research or practical hands-on activities whenever possible. The video resource below also illustrates how talking and forming their own questions can promote learning.
2 What kinds of questions do students ask?