Lesson: Brainstorming Research Questions

Lesson: Brainstorming Research Questions

Description

This is the initial lesson in the inquiry process. It allows students to take ownership of the inquiry process and should only be taught after sufficient interest and a genuine curiosity is evident in students. Students should also be very familiar with the different types of questions before teaching this lesson. While students can brainstorm (and the teacher should accept) all types of questions, the goal is to have all students generate and answer at least one Synthesis question.

Learning Outcomes I Suggested Procedure I Assessment for this Lesson

Materials for this Offline lesson:

White butcher paper to cover the chalkboard

Black thick tipped markers (2-3)

Sentence strips (50-100)

Scissors

Medium tipped back markers (one for every student)

Time allotment: 45 - 50 minutes

Grade Level: Grade 2 - 12

Information Literacy Standard:
9. The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to brainstorm questions on a topic for future research.
Students will be able to brainstorm different types of questions (Recall, Comprehension, and Synthesis questions) for future research.

Set-up

Have students in cooperative groups to facilitate copying over questions onto sentence strips.

Suggested Procedure

Tell students that they have been asking you a lot of questions about the topic and that it is time to get these questions in writing. Tell them that today they are going to brainstorm all the questions they have about the topic and that every question will be valued. (No one should pass judgement on any question. Students should sense an atmosphere of trust where all questions are acceptable).

As students begin generating questions, write them down on the butcher paper. It is a good idea to have another adult or student help you with this process. You want the questions to flow freely and quickly. Questions should be recorded as quickly as possible. Be sure and use a thick black marker so students can see the questions as they are recorded.
A motivated, interested group of 30 students should generate between 60 and 75 questions.
Once all questions have been recorded, tell students that as they think of more in the next couple of days that they can be added to the brainstorm.

Next take a big black marker and divide the butcher paper with questions into large chunks (similar to a jig saw puzzle)
Cut up the large chunks and give each group one chunk of paper with the questions.
Next give each group a pile of sentence strips and medium tipped black markers.
Have students record each question on a sentence strip. Be sure that they do not continue the question on the back of the sentence strip. If they need more room have them continue the question on a second sentence strip. Make sure that students record the questions on the sentence strips using the medium tipped black markers.

As students copy a question from the chunk of butcher paper, they should cross out the question on the butcher paper to ensure that other students do not copy the same question.
Congratulate students on generating excellent research questions.

Assessment

The richness of questions generated, and the variety of different types of questions asked by students is an indicator to the teacher as to whether he/she provided sufficient background information and initial learning experiences for this lesson.

If students generated wonderfully robust questions that they are truly curious about finding the answers to, then the teacher was successful in providing good background information and initial learning experiences.

If students had a difficult time generating questions, this is an indicator to the teacher that he/she needs to go back and provide more background information and initial learning experiences.

Last Lesson I Home I Next Lesson

link to UCLA 21st Century Literacies Initiative

This page was last updated February 19, 2002
This lesson was created to support the AT&T/UCLA Initiatives for the 21st Century Literacies.
Brainstorming Research Questions was created by Sharon Sutton