Crafting a Big Question

Evoking Opportunity for Deeper Thinking

If you have been motivated by my previous articles about inspiring curiosity and blowing up a question, your wonder walls will be fully loaded, your notebooks bursting with anecdotal notes and your mind bubbling with possibilities for your next class inquiry. But while students provide many leads, it is seldom that their questions are robust enough to drive an inquiry without a little more attention. Ultimately, co-constructing the big questions with students would be the ideal scenario, but give yourself and your staff some time to become skilled in the crafting process yourselves before adding another dynamic to the mix.

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When working with teachers ‘post- provocations,’ we surround ourselves in the key observations and jottings that indicate student wonderings, gaps, current thinking and areas of interest. Together, we repeatedly connect keywords and contexts after the words, “How might we,” until we have a big question that meets as much of our success criteria as possible.

ABigQuestionShould:

• Prompt students to reason, predict, invent, imagine or act.

• Be open ended, answerable in various ways.

• Connect to the big ideas or skills needed to be taught.

• Relate to a real-world context.

• Encourage curriculum integration.

• Be relevant and meaningful to students.

• Be unGooglable.

While not all questions need to begin with “How might we,” I find it is still the best place to start crafting. Being a MakerEd teacher, where I facilitate learning through doing, this question starter often prompts a physical product or planned action that manifests their learning journey and adds purpose.

Sugata Mitra describes a good big question as being difficult and open ended, possibly even unanswerable. This way, students are prompted to journey beyond the collection of knowledge and apply deeper level critical thinking such as reasoning, hypothesising, predicting, problem solving or theorising. They need to synthesise new information to construct their own knowledge. It is the difference between answering “Will robots ever replace humans?” over, “What can robots do?” or “How might we help our bees?” over, “What can bees do?”

Lee Watanabe Crockett indicates the need for an essential question to stimulate an appetite for learning. Kath Murdoch speaks similarly about inquiries being worth wondering about whether they are based around philosophy, real life issues, dispositions or projects.

I have certainly made the mistake of getting excited about a big question that the students have not been quite so excited about, making it a little too complex or steering it too narrowly in one direction. Be precautionary: Gain feedback from

your class, bounce your ideas around with colleagues and think critically about how it might play out. Be reflective. At the end of an inquiry, ask yourself how the question inspired, engaged, dampened, narrowed, broadened, challenged, limited or created learning opportunities.

The elusive, “Perfect big question,” is something I will always be chasing and what suits one class probably won’t work in the next year or neighbouring room. The resulting inquiry cannot be passed on as a ring binder of activities, bought on Teachers Pay Teachers or laid out for another coach to interpret. It is an evolving, flexible and adaptable chameleon that will uniquely morph into the shape of your student profiles. Be sure to let it.

Despite the need for your own questions to be a product of your unique class needs, it is helpful to explore those that have sparked a successful inquiry for others.

  • How might I serve a farm on a plate?
  • How might I make a robotic explorer?
  • How might we grow our positive school culture?
  • How might we contain a scent?
  • How might I become a hero?
  • How might I predict the future of ___________? • How might we create food for a purpose?
    • How might we send a marble on an epic journey? • How might I bring a character to life?

    • How might I become an ethical entrepreneur? • What if migration never happened?
    • What technology impacts me the most?
    • How can I grow $10?

    Once again, I leave you with a challenge. With a team of teachers, share the insights gleaned from your carefully planned provocations. Help each other skillfully weave a tailor-made question that will inspire your students to reach new heights. There will be laughs. It will take time. Snacks will help. You will fail. You will learn from failure. You will get better the more you practice. Be resilient. It will be worth it.

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Zaana Cooper


Zaana Cooper
Zaana Cooper is a creative educator of students and teachers. She is committed to designing educational opportunities that develop successful communicators, problem solvers and innovators for our future world. Working in a self- designed makerspace environment, she models an integrated and inquiry learning approach which incorporates design thinking, technologies and learning by doing.
You can contact her by email:
zaanajones@gmail.com