OpenSciEd Unit 7.6 · Lesson 01 · 1.C
Look for questions that are open (how/why) versus close…
From Teacher Edition
Facilitation guidance from the lesson plan — what to notice in student thinking and how to respond while teaching.
Building towards
1.C Ask questions that arise from initial observations of stories and headlines about rising temperatures, floods, and droughts to clarify whether increasing temperatures are related to or causing both floods and droughts.
What to look / listen for
Look for questions that are open (how/why) versus closed (yes/no), and also testable questions in the classroom. Also listen for questions that address both parts of our model.
What to do
Since students will put their initials on the backs of these sticky notes, you will have a few opportunities to take stock of the kinds of questions students ask in this initial lesson after they are posted on the DQB, as well as when they are writing them. When students share these questions for the DQB, they will likely only have time to share one. Collect the remaining questions that don’t get posted after the development of the DQB is complete. If your students are asking mostly closed questions, you can provide a copy of a photo of the questions on the Driving Question Board, and ask them to work on refining three or more of these questions so that they become “how” and “why” questions that can help answer the original question posted, as well the original yes/no question. This could be an in-class or home-learning assignment.
A DQB provides a public representation of the class’s joint mission. Students can share their questions and wonderings with one another, and the visual representation offers another modality for students to access science in the classroom. The DQB should be centrally located in the classroom so that it can be referenced and added to throughout the unit.
Supporting Emergent Multilingual Students
Asking questions in everyday language allows students to share their thinking or experiences, even if they do not have the appropriate scientific vocabulary yet. This is helpful for emergent multilingual students because by not requiring scientific words at the onset, you do not limit their participation in classroom discourse.