The document discusses the importance of questioning in developing student curiosity and learning. It notes that questioning lies at the heart of inquiry-based learning and that open, engaging questions are a key feature of inquiry-led classrooms. Some strategies for fostering a culture of questioning mentioned include modeling curiosity, valuing student questions, and using higher-order questioning techniques. The document also emphasizes giving students adequate wait time after asking questions to fully develop their thinking.

1. The Art of Questioning
Research tells us that questioning has a positive impact on student learning and is the signature of
outstanding pedagogical practice.
This is why questioning lies at the heart of inquiry. Inquiry teachers want their students to be
questioners – to be curious, risk taking, wondering learners who are thirsty to find out, critique and
explore the world.
When students set about answering a question they begin to construct ideas, apply knowledge, absorb
new information, and demonstrate understanding. Open, rich, engaging questions are a consistent
feature of inquiry-led classrooms.
A school culture of inquiry relies on students and teachers maintaining a continuous cycle of asking and
responding to powerful questions. As educators there are a number of strategies teachers can leverage
to help foster a culture of questioning within the learning environment. These include:
Provoking and MODELLING a curious disposition across the day. If we want to see a culture of
questioning develop then we as educators need to be the one leading the way and showing learners
what this looks like, sounds like, feels like etc.
VALUING and working with students questions and building their questioning skills and knowledge. Take
the time to truly listen to the questions your learners are asking. Show them that their questions and
thoughts matter and are valuable to our learning.
Using sophisticated, thoughtful QUESTIONING/DIALOGUE TECHNIQUES in the classroom
PLANNING learning experiences around questions.
Research conducted by the likes of David Hopkins and John Hattie, highlight that questioning plays a
large part in our classrooms, being the 2nd most utilised teaching strategy behind teacher talk.
However, most of the questions that we ask our students are lower-order or lower-cognitive questions
that ask students to recall facts or are procedural. This is indicative of a focus on knowledge acquisition.
Utilising higher-order questioning enables students to convert information to knowledge, and move
from Knowledge acquisition to knowledge application.

2. It is important to emphasise, as brain studies show, that motivation to learn is not sustained simply by
asking questions. It is sustained by identifying, explaining, and using the new knowledge and
understanding that results from asking and responding to questions.
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Skills is widely used as the basis for constructing questions –
particularly higher order questions. Bloom classifies thinking into 6 categories:
Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation
As teachers who are committed to fostering student curiosity and thinking, it is our job to ensure that
we are providing opportunities for students to think about and answer a range of questions, particularly
higher order questions. Students also need to learn how to ask questions, both of themselves as they
are learning, and of the ideas they are learning about. The following continuum of thinking skills can be a
useful prompt to help teachers and students scaffold a range of different questions throughout the
inquiry process.

3. Whatever question we ask, it is essential to give students time to pursue curiosity thinking. There are
two types of wait time that support the development of thinking and curiosity:
1) The time we wait for a response to a question which research shows is anywhere between 1.5 and 3.9
seconds.
2) The time we wait between the person responding to one question before we ask the next question
which ranges from 0.6 of a second up to 2.2 seconds.By making a conscious and concerted effort to
extend wait time from 1 second to 3 seconds, research shows there are several positive impacts on
student responses, including:
Longer responses
Decrease in students failing to respond
Confidence in responding increases
Number of spontaneous and relevant responses increases
Increase in the number of speculative responses
Increase in the number of different approaches to a question
Students are more likely to respond to the responses of their peers
The likelihood of inferences based on evidence increases
David Hopkins (2015) highlights that student responses to our questions improves when they know they
have longer to process questions, organise their thoughts and to look at ideas in different ways.
Wait time sustains curiosity.