Module title: Question Ladder

Activity 1

Ask learners to think of ideas individually, then place them in pairs, and then groups of four, before bringing the whole group back together. Produce a final list, and keep this up on the wall through the rest of the training activity, referring to it in order to provide examples from time to time.

Activity 2

Ask learners to work in groups of five to discuss the reasons they are engaging with the question ladder. Each member of the group should randomly select a cell from the Question Ladder Template, making sure there is no duplication within the group (although there could be between groups), and use it to construct the question about motivation.

Each person then shares their question with the others in their group and invites them to answer it.

Bring the groups together in a plenary session and ask each group to reflect on why a question might be difficult to answer. It could be because the question isn’t relevant. This leads on to a discussion of the redundancy in a completed Question Ladder, which is discussed below.

Allow around 30 minutes for this activity with a group size of 10.

Activity 3

a) Ask people to work in pairs or small groups to complete the partially completed Question Ladder Template for Margaret’s social enterprise. Afterwards, give groups the completed template to compare with their own. Ask them what cells were the most difficult to complete and why? (It is likely to have been the ‘would’ and ‘might’ columns because they relate to an unknown future position.)

b) Working in pairs or small groups, ask each group to select their top ten questions. The groups will then bring all these together in a plenary session, and the frequency of each question type counted. (There are 36 cells so 36 possible questions.) What are the top ten of the plenary session? If there are any ties, get the plenary session group to discuss the merits of the questions and decide on one.

Activity 4

Ask learners to work in small groups (or pairs) to consider a problem or opportunity and complete a Question Ladder Template together. (You could provide a topic relevant to the learners.) Depending on the size of the whole group, you might ask the small groups/pairs to consider particular types of questions. For example, Group 1 could consider ‘Who’ and ‘Is’ questions, Group 2 could consider ‘What’ and ‘Did’ questions etc. Once the template is completed, ask each small group/pair to select and blend the questions that they feel are the most relevant to the problem or opportunity. You can allow the groups to choose as many or as few questions as they need, or limit the number to standardise for group feedback in a plenary session. If the exercise is going to be a particularly practical one, assign action points to follow up, such as gathering information after the workshop.