A questioning approach to professional learning
Natalie Croome looks at the role of questioning in the classroom and in teacher training – why it’s important and why we don’t like it!
A conversation
“I teach teachers.” That has become my default response to the question I am often asked; “What do you do?” This is often met with raised eyebrows, tilted heads, baffled expression, curiosity written all over the face of the inquirer. When the conversation goes further, I have been questions like these:
“Why do you need to teach teachers? What do they need to learn?”
“What is wrong with the teachers you teach? Are they inexperienced?”
“Didn’t they learn about teaching at university?”
This line of conversation no longer surprises me – even though the same people expect doctors to keep up-to-date with the most current medical research. They expect airline pilots to know as much as possible about the emerging meteorological science. They expect lawyers to be aware of changes and updates in legislation and rightly so. But when it comes to teachers, what I hear is, “Why don’t they just teach? It’s not rocket science!”
Isn’t it?
Of course, there is ever more to keep up with. Over the last eight years as a trainer, I have been asked to create courses covering a wide variety of professional learning fields, from teaching the decoding skills of reading, meeting the needs of all learners in multilingual classrooms, the power of using manipulatives to teach mathematical concepts and building wellbeing and resilience skills as teachers.
A professional responsibility
There is always so much to learn. Reflective teachers will understand what works for them as they gain experience, but as with other professions, things don’t stay still. Maintaining awareness of new techniques, new knowledge and ideas that work for others is a professional responsibility for all of us.
My most recent work as a teacher trainer over the last four years has been focused on meeting the Professional Learning needs and interests of educators, administrators, and school support staff mainly from government administered schools in all 27 EU member states and some of the 9 EU candidate countries. My quick calculations revealed the surprising result that I have worked with an annual average of 200 participants across 17 courses. During this time, I have found out quite a lot about what contemporary European teachers want, can do and the challenges they face. There are several quite surprising themes (some maybe not so surprising!) that have emerged.
Professional disengagement
The courses that I have run in the EU are almost all for teachers who are under the most intense pressure to ‘cover the course’ and get students through assessments, exams and tests. As a result of this I have found new participants for a week’s course arrive with an almost frightening level of disengagement. Unlike the lay people I talk to about teacher training, many of the teachers who participate in the courses I facilitate have relatively few questions – at least at first. We spend a minimum of 2 hours on our first day together, trying to hone in on their ‘burning questions’ which, in many cases are not that “hot”! There is an apparent lack of interest and professional searching among the very people who we hope are igniting this spirit in their students. The passive, inert teacher energy that I confront on Monday mornings is frequently alarming and yet sets the most invigorating training challenge!
Looking for a hack?
I set about cajoling my participants into crafting questions that will help us uncover true curiosities and peculiarities about the business of teaching and learning. We deconstruct the learning design process; pulling apart the target knowledge to be shared, the skills to be developed, the concepts to be understood, the behaviours and attitudes to be practised and demonstrated. I attempt to model best practice by allowing these teachers to ‘learn-by-doing’, and exposing them to what it feels like to be a learner who is truly curious, fascinated and engaged. However, my Burning Questions strategy, with which I expect to set the room on fire (!), often sadly leaves us lukewarm and ready for a coffee break. At the end of it all, I sometimes receive feedback that this was a waste of time and suggestions I could have just given them hand-out or an activity.
In fact, in my 8 years of designing and facilitating Professional Learning for educators, activity/ies has become something of a four-letter word for me. It feels to me like I am being asked for a trick! A hack! Some magic! Just give me something to save me time or to “motivate“ my students, to make them respect me, to keep their parents happy, to help them pass their exams.
Asking questions
We all seem to be uncomfortable when asking questions, Why? Perhaps we are just shy, or it may be that we are not accustomed to, nor comfortable with, asking questions we don’t already know the answer to and herein lies our biggest challenge. Questioning – or at least the right kind of open-ended questioning, it would seem, has not become a part of a ‘normal’ teaching repertoire, because it does not get people down the line with what they are expected to do – i.e. – to cover the course.
If people are not asking true inquiry questions about their own professional practice in a natural way, I must assume that they are also not ready or willing to engage their students in the kind of learning that comes from true inquiry, both individual and collaborative. Perhaps we fear that, in posing professional questions, our professional credibility is at stake; that publicly asking questions, especially in front of our peers, might make us appear ignorant or expose us as incompetent. The truth of course is, that we all have gaps in our knowledge that we need to fill. We all have questions to ask and we should not be afraid to ask them.
Teachers as learners
We therefore need to build an understanding among education professionals that the very key to our success and that of the learners in our care is to be, first and foremost, learners ourselves. It’s an old theme but one to which lip-service is paid, but evidently not as alive as it should be. I hope, of course, that by the end of our week or so together, I will observe that the fire has begun to ignite and the participants leave, comfortable with the fact that they are full of questions and that this is what will make them better leaders of the learning of others.
Common gaps
One thing to realise is that none of us are alone and as I reflect on my last four years of working in this way, some themes emerge that I see as common gaps in teacher knowledge or interest – and these are some of the areas that I am looking forward to teaching and in the process convincing people that they are all important in their day-to-day work:
- Neuroscience
- Student engagement: motivation vs. inspiration
- Learning Design
- Evaluation vs. Assessment
- Parents as Partners
Here’s to 2025 and beyond – and more questions!
Natalie Croome is a Cognitive Coach, Designer and Facilitator of Professional Learning and a PYP specialist. She is also the founder of ITeach Solutions and brings a collaborative, inquiry based approach to Professional Learning, which she offers in schools, on-line or on Retreat in Europe and Australia.
To learn more see https://iteach.solutions/
Feature & Support Images from: Unsplash
