QuBuild: A guided approach to asking better scientific questions in primary schools, by Professor Lynne Bianchi and Tina Whittaker is a brand new book that will support the #GSSfS community!

Jenny Watson, Primary Science Education Specialist reviews…

Questioning is a fundamental part of both scientific research and also teaching and learning science – where, in both these cases, asking ‘good’ questions can stimulate thinking, enquiry and learning. Improving scientific questions, defined as ones that lead to evidence being gathered and analysed, results in more precise and valid investigations.

What’s the book about?

The premise of this book is that asking good scientific questions is a skill that, alongside other scientific skills such as measuring, recording and analysing data, reaching conclusions etc, should be explicitly taught to children in primary school. This will steer them to be better, more independent scientists – asking and answering their own questions about the world around them. This book will help teachers who want to empower their classes through child-led learning, yet recognise that asking and evaluating questions, is a tricky skill for children to acquire.

The ‘QuBuild Process’ provides a systematic 3-step approach to enable teachers to improve the scientific questions children ask. The first QuBuild step, ‘Question Producing’, encourages children to generate as many questions as possible to capture their curiosity about a particular topic. Step 2 involves the children collaboratively ‘Question handling’ – discussing, sorting and organising questions in different ways, so that all questions are valued, and children understand that different types of questions serve different purposes.

The third and final step of the QuBuild process involves children tweaking their questions - using ‘peer review’ to shape and improve the questions, that they now feel co-owners of, into ones suited to being answered by collecting evidence. They can then choose which question to take forward to answer themselves using an enquiry.

What does the book contain?

For each of the three QuBuild steps, the book provides classroom-ready resources – including introductory activities, learning tools that enable children to practise the skills, and finally, visual prompts to support children, now familiar with the approach, to recall what each of the QuBuild steps involve. For example, when producing a collection of questions, the introductory activities enable children to recognise the differences between questions and statements, and consider ways in which different types of scientist produce questions; the learning tools include various question makers (e.g. spinners, frames, ‘wonder bubbles’ and a teller); and the visual-prompt icon represents different children’s questions resulting from a stimulus provided by their teacher.

In addition to explaining the ‘QuBuild Process’ and providing tools that teachers can use to develop their class’s questions, the book also contains reflections from four teachers who have used the approach in different contexts, illustrating the impact it can have on teachers and children.

This book is a straightforward, yet important, read. It should help you empower your class to come up with better questions for purposeful enquiries which support not only the substantive and disciplinary parts of the national curriculum, but also the children’s curiosity as developing scientists and learners.

If you’re interested in QuBuild, click here