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by 

Dan Rothstein, EdD
Director
Right Question Institute
Cambridge, MA 

Bio of Speaker: Dan Rothstein, Ed.D., is co-author, with Luz Santana, of Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions (Harvard Education Press: 2011) which first introduced the Question Formulation Technique and led to its enthusiastic adoption by over 300,000 teachers in the U.S., Canada, and around the world. Dan’s work focuses on honoring and supporting the work of educators to help students learn to ask better questions and take more ownership of their own learning. His active learning keynotes and seminars have engaged many audiences, including statewide rural education organizations, large urban districts, the Library of Congress, Harvard Medical School, and others. His work has appeared in a wide range of publications and has been featured on National Public Radio. He is currently a Co-P.I. on an NSF EAGER grant to improve doctoral students’ question-asking abilities.

Abstract of talk: What if students began their college education by knowing how to ask good questions? What if doctoral students began their studies knowing how to formulate important research questions? How would that change both teaching and learning in higher education? And, if students are not yet able to ask good questions, how can we prepare them to better utilize a foundational skill essential for learning, research and discovery? This session will dive deeply into the “art” of using the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), a deceptively simple learning protocol that emerged organically from years of work with community-based non-formal educational programs in communities around the country. The initial development of the protocol led eventually to NIH and NSF-funded studies that demonstrated its effectiveness across many fields. In the past 7 years, it has been rapidly and successfully adapted by educators in more than a million classrooms around the world who are using it to promote critical thinking, research and problem-solving skills. The session will include both the opportunity for participants to create their own classroom application for immediate use and a discussion about an emerging theory of learning grounded in question formulation. 

My Take Away

The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) is a formalized way of teaching student to ask good questions. It is basically a rigorous “Question and Answer” discussion session; or a way to conduct the famed “Case Method of Teaching” used in Harvard Business School; or the Socrate’s method of teaching.  The method

1.   starts with a topic selected by the leader

2.   students raise questions non-stop about the topic. These questions are written down and hang up on the wall of the classroom

3.   If student makes a statement about the topic, it is turned into a closed-ended question (can be answered yes or no) or an open ended question (can be answered with explanation)

4.   The class then order the questions by importance and priority followed by Reflection about their thinking in arriving at the order.

More resources and details can be seen at the website of Right Question Institute (RQI) by googling it.