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Ifrom students that reveals the state of the students’ un-derstanding. Next, the teacher recognizes the response byreflecting it back to the student or asking another follow-up question. The third step involves taking some form ofaction to help the student move toward the essence of theactivity or concept. The process can be thought of as acycle to reflect the ongoing nature of informative ques-tioning throughout inquiry activities.

Setting and aligning learning goalsScience inquiry units, like all other instruction, should havean ultimate goal to focus daily activities. Conversely, eachdaily activity should contribute in some way to reaching the

Erin Marie Furtak is a research assistant in the School of Education atStanford University in Stanford, California. Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primois a senior research scholar in the School of Education at Stanford Uni-versity in Stanford, California.

by Erin Marie Furtak and Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo

QUESTIONINGCYCLE: Making students’

thinking explicit duringscientific inquiry

nquiry learning is an excellent way for students to getactively involved in science. It is essential that whileinquiry learning is in progress, teachers continuouslyelicit students’ conceptions and take action to move

students toward learning goals (Black and Wiliam 1998;Bell and Cowie 2001; Duschl 2003).

The informative questioning cycleDuring inquiry activities, teachers need to ensure theirstudents are making progress toward learning goals. Theinformative questioning cycle can help teachers and stu-dents achieve these goals through simple techniques thatcan redirect and improve the quality of students’ learn-ing while it is in progress. The informative questioningcycle assists the teacher in making students’ thinking ex-plicit so the teacher can help students develop deeperunderstanding. The teacher begins by eliciting a response

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ultimate goal. The goals for anactivity can consist of learningabout a concept, such as density,or developing a process skill, suchas using a balance or construct-ing a graph properly.

A useful analogy for think-ing about daily activity goals isthe preparation of food. Differ-ent ingredients are combinedtogether because of their indi-vidual flavors, and the flavorsof these ingredients togethercreate the taste of the dish.Similarly, each activity in aninquiry unit must have an es-sence that, when combinedwith those from other activi-ties, contributes to the ultimateinstructional goal.

To determine what the essenceof an activity might be, a teachermay ask: What will students need toknow and be able to do at the end ofthe unit? What are the concepts andskills students need to acquire dur-ing each of the activities to reach thegoal? If a certain activity does notcontribute to the ultimate goal,the teacher should question whyit is being included. While com-petencies that satisfy the criteriafor the ultimate goal are not de-veloped in a single activity, thecontribution of each activity to-ward the ultimate goal should beclearly understood for each class-room activity.

Eliciting student responsesEliciting questions serve the pur-pose of drawing out what studentsknow and are able to do, and tohelp them learn how to share thisinformation in an inquiry activ-ity. Although teachers already usequestions of this style, we suggesttheir purpose be changed to in-crease their informative potential.Asking students to provide evi-dence for an explanation, to share

FIGURE 1 Suggested questions for the eliciting stage of theinformative questioning cycle

Provide evidence

Formulate explanations

Evaluate the quality of evidence

Interpret data or patterns

Compare/contrast others’ ideas

Share observations

Elaborate

Take votes on ideas

Share everyday experiences

Use/apply known procedures

Share predictions

Define concept(s)

What evidence do you have for your statement?

How do you explain the trend you see in the data?

Based upon the methods you used, tell me what you

think about the evidence you collected.

What does this pattern mean about the question youwere asking?

How is your idea different from Joe’s idea?

What did you observe as you were completing theactivity?

What do you mean when you say that?

How many of you agree with this idea?

Have any of you encountered a similar phenomenon

at home?

How do you draw a best-fit line?

What do you think will happen to the depth of sinking

if I add more mass to this carton?

What do you think this word means?

Types of eliciting questionsAsk students to:

Examples

FIGURE 2 Suggested responses for the recognizing stage of theinformative questioning cycle

Incorporates student’s comments into the

ongoing classroom conversation

Explores student’s ideas

Captures/displays student’s responses

Clarifies/elaborates based upon student’sresponses

Takes vote to acknowledge student’s ideas

Repeats or paraphrases student’s words

Carlos is referring back to our discussion

a few days ago, when we talked about howthings sink when their density is greaterthan the medium.

Alice, you suggested that the liquid looks verythick, so I’m going to pour it into this containerso you can all see what she means.

[Writes down students’ responses on theboard or easel for future discussion,comparing explanations, etc.]

You said things sink because they areheavy, but what are some heavy things thatdo not sink?

How many of the rest of you agree with Blake?

You said the rock will sink because it hasa greater density than the water?

Type of recognizing question or statementTeacher:

Examples

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predictions based upon previous experiences, and to describepatterns in their data are all ways that the teacher can elicitstudents’ thinking. Figure 1 includes a list of eliciting ques-tions. Teachers should use the list as a source of suggestions,tailoring the questions to fit their own activities.

Eliciting questions may be used at any point in a lesson.For example, the teacher may use eliciting questions to de-termine students’ prior knowledge when introducing a newactivity, or to focus class discussion around an importantconcept at the conclusion of an investigation. In some casesthe teacher may choose to develop eliciting questions inadvance by writing them into a lesson plan. At other times,such as when the students are collecting data, the elicitingquestions may be more spontaneous and responsive to whatthe students are doing at a given time.

Recognizing student responsesOnce teachers have successfully elicited students’ responses,they can acknowledge what the student has said in someway. Recognizing students’ responses makes clear the stu-dents’ contribution during whole class conversations orsmall group work and allows students to agree or disagreewith what the teacher or other students have said. It shouldgo beyond repeating students’ words verbatim; rather, teach-ers should incorporate the student’s comment into the on-going classroom discussion (O’Connor and Michaels 1993),or rephrase the comment so that the student can acknowl-

edge or take credit for theirresponse (van Zee andMinstrell 1997). Note thatthis step in the cycle in-volves not only questions,but also statements theteacher can make in re-sponse to a student com-ment. Figure 2 lists these andseveral other types of recog-nizing responses.

In some cases, thestudent’s response will be un-clear or incomplete. Afterrecognizing the response, theteacher should return to thefirst step in the cycle and askthe student another questionto elicit further information,such as asking the student toelaborate on a previous re-sponse, which will allow theteacher to continue the cyclein a more informed manner

to help the student progress toward the ultimate learninggoal of the activity.

Acting on student responsesBecause one of the goals of informative questioning is to con-tinually move students toward ultimate learning goals, the thirdpart of the cycle, acting, involves using students’ responses asan opportunity to advance student learning based upon infor-mation attained in the previous two steps. In our research, it isthis final step that we found to be most powerful in terms ofstudent performance on different types of assessments becauseit leads students to learn the essence of the activity, which isnecessary for them to reach the ultimate goal.

For example, if conflicting responses have been elic-ited from students, the teacher can encourage studentsto discuss their conceptions with each other by provid-ing counter-examples or explanations, allowing studentsto argue their sides, always based on evidence. This pro-cess will help students evaluate for themselves whatmight be the best explanation and come to an agree-ment based upon the quality of the evidence providedto support the explanation.

The teacher can also act more directly in the form of pro-viding meaningful feedback to the students. High-qualityfeedback consists of three steps: explaining the goal, explain-ing to the student where they are with respect to the goal,and suggesting steps the student might make to achieve that

FIGURE 3 Suggested strategies for the acting stage of theinformative questioning cycle

Promotes argumentation

Helps relate evidence to explanations

Provides descriptive or helpful feedback

Promotes making sense

[Providing counter-examples, encouragingstudents to address each other and to citeevidence for their claims.]

The evidence in the graph shows us that as massincreases, depth of sinking increases. It looks likemass is at least one factor that contributes to whythings sink and float.

We’re trying to develop a universal explanation forwhy things sink and float. Right now, you’re just tellingme why things sink. The next step for you is to learnabout the variables that control why things float, toput that together as we develop our explanation.

This object is sinking because it has a density of1.2, whereas this object floats because it has adensity of 0.9. The difference is in the density ofwater, which is 1.0. Things with a density greaterthan 1.0 sink, and things with a density less than1.0 float.

Type of acting question or statementTeacher:

Examples

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goal (Sadler 1989). There are a number of strategies teach-ers can employ in this final step (Figure 3).

Informative questioning as assessment for learningIn the context of inquiry, telling students whether their responsesare right or wrong focuses them on whether they have the cor-rect answer, rather than allowing them to explore how they arecoming to know what they know (Duschl 2003). Teachers shouldavoid the pattern of asking a question, receiving a response froma student, evaluating the answer, and moving quickly to the nextquestion. The targeted actions possible in the informative ques-tioning cycle can help students to understand more clearly howthey are thinking about concepts and processes and to lead themto reach inquiry learning goals. A sample conversation incorpo-rating the entire cycle is provided in Figure 4. The sample isbased upon the investigation “Sinking and Floating Objects” fromthe Foundational Approaches to Science Teaching curriculum(Pottenger and Young 1992), in which students are provided witha collection of sinking and floating objects and are asked to de-termine if it is possible to predict the volume of water a floatingobject will displace if its mass is known.

Informative questioning helps the teacher become awareof the students’ thinking and provides a basis for action. Prac-ticing informative questioning is practicing high quality in-formal formative assessment, which improves student learn-ing. We have evidence that teachers using informative ques-tioning had students who performed better on several types

FIGURE 4 Sample learning conversation that demonstrates informative questioning duringsmall group work.

Ms. Yin: Can you predict the displaced volume of this floating objectnow that its mass is known?

Rich: I think that displaced volume will be about the same.

Ms. Yin: How do you know? Can you show me some evidence fromyour graph that supports your prediction?

Rich: I’m not sure. I don’t see anything.

Ms. Yin: Can you give me an example from your data table?

Rich: Well, I have this container of sand, and it floated. Its mass is11.84 grams, and it displaced 12 ml of water.

Ms. Yin: So Rich, you’re telling me that the volume of displaced wateris equal to the mass in this container of sand, based uponthe data you collected in the activity?

Rich: Yeah.

Ms. Yin: Okay Rich, you’re telling me the relationship for this oneobject. Ayita over here is saying something else—I heard hersay a few minutes ago that the graph shows that mass anddisplaced volume are equal for all objects. Rich, why don’tyou use your graph to see whether you agree or disagree?

Making a prediction (eliciting)

Asking Rich to provide evidence (eliciting)

Asking Rich to provide an example (eliciting)

Revoicing Rich’s statement, noticing thatRich seems to understand the essence ofthe activity, but does not generalize from oneobject to the trend on the graph (recognizing)

Promoting argumentation (acting)

Ms. Yin’s example Role of question

of formative embedded assessments (e.g., predict-observe-explain, open-ended questions) and summative assessments(e.g., performance assessments, predict-observe-explain,open-ended questions) aligned with the learning goals oftheir curriculum (Ruiz-Primo and Furtak 2004). n

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