 it is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers.pierre-marc-gaston , duc de lvis ( 17641830 )  i get it ; science is just like spelling .
you just have to memorize it and it does n't make any sense.anonymous u.s . elementary school student the juxtaposition of these quotes illustrates a serious shortcoming of k12 science education .
the foundation of science is to ask questions about the natural world and then seek answers .
if a student sees spelling and learning science as similar experiences , then we are failing to communicate the fundamental reason why science exists as a discipline and what it has to offer .
the student 's quote , sadly , reflects our approach to teaching science : learn the facts and do n't deviate from that script .
however , before organizing scientific data into  facts ,  science begins by asking questions as a form of intellectual exploration .
young children are full of questions , spawned by true curiosity rather than a desire to impress . but over the course of their education , students and adults ask fewer questions and more passively accept facts as  the way things are .
however , i would like to think that it is not an inevitable outcome of the educational pipeline .
thus it is worthwhile to ask whether we could be doing more to promote questioning as a fundamental tool for science education and in the practice of professional science .
you ca n't expect to wake up one morning and run a marathon without training .
similarly , asking good questions is a skill that requires practice , training , and mentoring .
if a child ( or adult ) is placed in an environment that does not encourage active questioning , then that skill will not become an active habit of mind .
socrates is well known for using questioning to probe the validity of an assumption , analyze the logic of an argument , and explore the unknown .
questions were a means to educate his students by drawing out their understanding of a subject and then leading them to discover a set of logical conclusions instead of lecturing them on what is true or false .
socratic questioning is still advocated as a powerful contemporary teaching method ( brill and yarden , 2003 ) .
questioning is a core principle of eastern philosophies as well . in the prashna - upanishad , one of the earliest of the upanishad texts that serve as a foundation of hinduism , pupils pose six great questions to a wise teacher ( prashna means question in sanskrit ) .
the buddha also encouraged questioning by his disciples , and a fundamental role for questioning is still embraced in the practices of modern buddhism .
i recently had the pleasure of visiting dharamsala , india , where i watched tibetan buddhist monks debate  a daily practice that involves one monk continually questioning another monk for an hour , often on esoteric points of buddhist thought .
the impressive aspect of this practice is how the monks use this method of questioning / answering to hone their skills in logic and to probe complex questions .
the questioning involves great mental concentration and intense exchange , punctuated by episodes of laughter and joy .
interestingly , the use of questioning for intellectual exploration and teaching evolved independently in socratic and buddhist schools of thought , and both developed this skill through a high degree of discipline and practice .
philosophy and science grew up together and were inseparably intertwined ; logical argument and inductive thinking were ways of exploring / explaining the natural world .
facts  to memorize , and the framework of using experimentation / data gathering to formulate scientific theories gained hold only in the middle of the second millennium .
since that point , science and philosophy have grown steadily apart in subject areas and methodologies .
it would be rare to find a scientist and philosopher exchanging ideas with one another at a meeting .
however , the art of questioning is practiced by scientists , philosophers , and educators , and these disciplines might learn from one another and explore and exploit each other 's practices and ideas .
virtually all educators agree that teaching science should involve more inquiry - based learning and less fact - based memorization ( committee on a conceptual framework for new k-12 science education standards , 2012 ) .
many educators are now developing experimental modules that engage students in the practice of scientific inquiry in a laboratory setting and are trying to export these experimental modules and ideas to many schools .
pursued properly , a good question also can be an excellent vehicle with which to start a process of inquiry .
investigating an answer to a question need not require a laboratory , special equipment , or money .
the goal of asking and answering a question is not necessarily to probe a completely untouched area of science ( which is unrealistic for k12 ) .
rather , it should be a personal quest to resolve a curiosity and grapple with trying to understand the answer .
furthermore , researching one question often results in a further round of questions that dig deeper into a phenomenon .
alan alda , the famous actor / director / writer , who is now on the advisory board of the center for communicating science at stony brook university , posed a challenge in science of answering the question ,  what is a flame ?  ( alda , 2012 ) .
this challenge was based on his experience as an 11-year - old asking his teacher this same question and receiving the disappointing , few - syllabic answer , 
last spring , alda received more than 800 answers to that question from scientists , and the answers were judged by 6000 11-year - olds .
this example illustrates that a lot of thought is required to understand and explain  simple  questions about our everyday experiences .
 why is the sky blue ?  can be used to learn an enormous amount about light and the atmosphere .
what evidence supports light 's behavior as a wave ? why do we say that it is a particle ? and for more advanced students ,  how can single photons aimed at a pair of slits create interference patterns on the other side , as though they passed through both slits simultaneously ?  by posing questions , one appreciates that science is not all about filling in the correct bubble with a # 2 pencil .
that might frustrate a subset of teachers and students who want clear - cut answers .
cooler  and better prepare students to think about evidence and to navigate in a complex world that does not always have precise answers .
questioning can be used to promote independent learning in a school setting in a variety of ways .
the key ingredients are that students should have some freedom to choose a question in which they are interested , have an opportunity to research the answer on their own , and then have an opportunity to teach others ( peers and the teacher ) what they learned .
i witnessed one especially successful example of spontaneous , curiosity - driven questioning in the  katta ,  a volunteer science discussion group for college students led by milind watve , then at garware college , pune , india ( jog , 2009 ) .
a katta in marathi ( the regional indian language ) means a place where people can meet , talk , and exchange ideas . in watve 's katta
however , in some instances , students begin to swarm around a question , wanting to know more .
this experience often ignites a student , or a group of students , to investigate the question more deeply on their own and then present what they discovered at a later katta .
sometimes the group of students decides to investigate the question in a scientific manner , using tools of a laboratory , math , field studies , and so on , as appropriate . in several cases , those investigations went all the way to publications in well - known journals .
watve 's role is as a catalyst , providing a safe environment where students can feel free to ask a question without worrying about whether it is good , bad , intelligent , or crazy .
usually , no one in the room ( including watve ) is an expert in the subject .
but he encourages them to pursue the question regardless , stimulating them to take ownership of the question and think in new ways that possibly may not have occurred to scientists in the field .
when i was a child and needed to research a topic for school or find an answer to a question , i pulled out the world book encyclopedia , our family 's prized possession .
i did not always have to go the library ; i was fortunate to have a source of knowledge at home .
how different the world has become for my teenage kids . through the internet , they have unprecedented access to information encompassing virtually the entire scope of human knowledge .
this information is now available on a time scale of seconds , as if it has become a virtual extension of our cerebral cortex .
if an interesting question pops into one 's mind , one can research it immediately and from multiple sources , rather than visit the library tomorrow or next week .
furthermore , global connections can now be made between a child in india with a question and a scholar in england who can provide a response .
however , the rapid blooming of the internet into a vast , thick jungle of information poses a couple of problems  our time is limited , and there is no easy formula for integrating information .
thus 
 the most important skill for the twenty - first century , in my opinion , is learning how to judge and integrate information from multiple sources to generate conceptual understanding or a new idea .
although integrating information is becoming increasingly important for future success , the educational community has not fully grappled with how to teach students these skills .
many teachers , for example , say that wikipedia is unreliable and can not be used as a resource .
some make blanket statements that .org or .gov sites are good and .com sites are bad .
kids are savvy enough to know that such statements are too simplistic and not true .
yes , one can find errors in wikipedia , although several studies suggest that there are relatively few ( giles , 2005 ) .
but a state - approved high school biology textbook also can have out - of - date information and incorrect simplifications .
it is also folly to think that teenagers who seek an answer to one of their own questions will go to their textbook or their teacher ; they will head straight to the internet , and with some judgment , they will find a good resource in short time .
in addition , we are already living in a world where most adults are turning to the internet as a source of information about science ( brossard and scheufele , 2013 ) . rather than severely restricting kids from internet research ,
more attention needs to paid to teaching them best practices , such as directing them to good internet sources , teaching them how to identify potentially flawed information , how to integrate information from multiple sources , and how to reference them . categorically stating that wikipedia is unreliable is insufficient ; rather specific pages or examples on wikipedia where information might be incomplete or inaccurate need to be illustrated ( and these are rare from my experiences with bigger scientific topics ) .
students also need to gain a more mature view of knowledge , understanding that it is dynamic and that there are points of contention that demand judgment rather than blind memorization .
importantly , there is no need to create two camps of scholarship by creating separate instruction manuals for what kids need to do to get the best grade for a classroom assignment versus how they should assimilate knowledge beyond school .
most schools have mottos about teaching students to  become life - long learners ,  but this will not happen unless students see connections between how they research a question for school and how they would research a question on their own .
questioning may seem like a good educational approach , so why is it not a more common practice in science education ?
first is the perception that the teacher is an almighty vessel of knowledge who imparts information to students . in that formulation , a difficult question with no immediate answer or an uncertain answer can be threatening to a teacher and disappointing to a student .
i do not know the answer to that question , but let me look it up  or let 's look it up together .
 many questions do not have quick , easy answers and thus become seeds for investigation .
students also should be able to teach their peers when they look up an answer to a question . in this model ,
teachers and students become partners in their mutual education . a second impediment to using questioning as an educational tool
. it can be hard to plan around such uncertainty . with state - mandated curricula
the ability to ask a question , research the answer , and present it to the class requires some degree of flexibility in the weekly lesson plan .
most teachers , particularly in state - run schools , do not have that luxury . a third impediment to using questioning
i already discussed that ancient greeks and contemporary buddhists practice this skill for many years .
similarly , teacher training would be required to implement such ideas in a classroom . as discussed in recent editorials by bruce alberts ( 2012a , b ) , at the root of all three obstacles
is the lack of time in k12 education for in - depth investigation by students or teachers .
state science curricula mandate a list of  required  topics and information that is so long that it becomes quite difficult for teachers to pack it all in during a school year . this comprehensive , memorization - based approach is great for testing but poor for producing kids who are interested in science or even know what science is truly about
. a conceptual understanding of how cells use and make energy is more important than regurgitating all of the steps in glycolysis , which can be quickly relearned online .
state educators need to reduce the amount of required material in their science curricula to allow more the time for in - depth learning , teacher initiative and professional development , and exploration of questions .
finland is adopting such strategies , with substantially better educational outcomes than the united states ( sahlberg , 2011 ) .
identifying a good question and being able to articulate it well is not just an exercise for high school students , but is also a key skill in becoming a successful scientist .
a grant proposal often receives a poor score not because the proposed experiments are poorly conceived , but because the questions being asked are not interesting or not clearly articulated .
it is easy to fall into this trap , because specific aims are often written in terms of achieving a specific technical goal rather than from the standpoint of framing and answering a compelling question .
weaving good questions into the text of a grant can be a way to communicate the goals of a project .
many seminars are lackluster because they are swimming in data but lack a captivating question to motivate the data collection .
raising questions throughout a seminar engages the audience and involves them in the thought process .
posing a single question on a slide also can be an effective means of framing the steps involved in answering that question in subsequent slides . in summary , asking questions is a part of the joy of science .
 even much later , as a seasoned , well - educated scientist , one can continually learn from and strive to perfect this gift of human intellect .
 science begins by asking questions and then seeking answers . 
 young children understand this intuitively as they explore and try to make sense of their surroundings . 
 however , science education focuses upon the end game of  facts  rather than the exploratory root of the scientific process . 
 encouraging questioning helps to bring the true spirit of science into our educational system , and the art of asking good questions constitutes an important skill to foster for practicing scientists . 
INTRODUCTION
THE ART OF ASKING A GOOD QUESTION
POSING A QUESTION AS A BASIS OF INDEPENDENT LEARNING AND INQUIRY
PURSUING ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS: THE NEW ROLE OF THE INTERNET
BARRIERS TO ACCEPTING QUESTIONING AS A BASIS OF TEACHING
QUESTIONING AS A SKILL FOR PROFESSIONAL SCIENTISTS