Day 4-5Developing Research Questions

Students will create a list of questions collaboratively to include in developing research questions.

I really enjoyed this section. The students really got into the survey questions, survey and research vailidity and how difficult it is to ask a truly neutral and information gathering question. It was very insightful and fun. Here is my basic challenge outline lesson.Challenge-5.docx (22.6 KB)

I will have my class work in small groups to think of research questions they are interested in answering. This will create interest and buy in. After each group comes up with a question of interest, I will have them brainstorm the best methods to apply to get a valid answer. I will suggest asking different types of questions to give them some ideas, but will let them determine the types of questions / tools to use. One example: how many students are in shape vs. out of shape? This is a very tricky question because it is somewhat subjective, but therefore first requires students to do some research and set a standard for measuring this in a fair / consistent way. As a science teacher, this is a skill I feel is extremely important for students to learn and to apply within their work. So, I would welcome questions like this because students will undoubtedly struggle at some point and will realize they have to re-work their question or the way they search for and analyze results. I will have them switch question and proposed methods with other groups to get feedback and then give them an opportunity to re-work their original question/ methods. Throughout the process, I will take advantage of student struggles for teachable moments for how to ask, collect, and analyze data in the most effective manner and point out how different questions require different approaches, like the example I provided above. This would be the extension activity I would use for this lesson.