What If My Students’ Questions Go Off the Rails?

by Connie Williams Like any lesson ever, the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) doesn’t always go as perfectly as planned, but there’s always something you can learn from your facilitation of the QFT and students always benefit from having space and time to ask questions. I’ve certainly had those experiences where the Question Focus (QFocus) and […]

It’s All About the Question

By Ellen Gammel The Fitchburg High School state report came back… Level 3… again. For schools in Massachusetts, this Department of Education label informs us we are in the bottom 20% of schools – definitely a label no school wants. The discouragement and frustration came to the forefront, and then the big question: Why? Why […]

Right Question Stories from the Field: Farming on Volcanoes, Flint’s Water Crisis, and Excreting Isopods

How educators are using the Question Formulation Technique in STEM lessons around the country and world. By Chris Orchard Students in Alyssa Park’s fourth-grade class had a pressing question about isopods. Specifically, “Do they poop?” To refresh your memory, isopods are “small sessile-eyed aquatic or terrestrial crustaceans with the body composed of seven free thoracic […]

My Ah-Ha Moments with the Question Formulation Technique

by Connie Williams When first starting to use the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), I thought I needed to run through the process as described each and every time. It made sense, after all, to complete it with fidelity so that I would know that I was doing it “right.” As I became more competent – […]

To Adapt, or Not to Adapt?: How Fidelity-Of-Implementation of the QFT Can Impact Student Outcomes

by Shelby Clark In the fall of 2015, my colleagues at Boston University and I set out to find out how the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) impacts high school student outcomes, in particular curiosity, divergent thinking (creativity), school engagement, and self-efficacy. On the one hand, we were particularly interested in knowing whether teaching students to […]

A Pen-and-Paper Technique for the EdTech Enthusiast

By Jay Sorensen So, the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) isn’t necessarily a technology-related tool. It can be done with no more than pencil and paper. Of course, you can enhance it by bringing in videos, or using VR for your Q-focus, or holding an online discussion of questions. But I think of the QFT as tech-related in […]

Biography and Bioethics: 9th Graders Ask Questions about the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

It all began with a question. For writer and journalist Rebecca Skloot, it was a question she asked as a high school student in a college biology lecture that launched her into a decades long research and writing process that eventually became the New York Times Bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. After a […]

English Students Use the QFT to Drive AP-ready, SAT-ready, EPT-ready Learning

by Andrea Giordano-Rink In my 24 years of teaching high school English in the Sweetwater District in Southern California I have never used a strategy as powerful as the Question Formulation Technique (QFT). I am teaching Honors English 11 this year with a very unique set of students. These are the students, primarily, who have […]

Video: The Question Formulation Technique in a High School Science Class

The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) is being used in schools and districts across the United States. Educators use the QFT to promote student-centered learning and increase student engagement. In this video, students in David Meshoulam’s ninth grade physics class at Newton North High School (Massachusetts) go through the Question Formulation Technique process towards the end of a unit on […]

Lincoln, Power, and the Question Formulation Technique (QFT)

By Daniel Fouts Where was the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) 23 years ago? When I began teaching social studies in 1993, I relied on teacher-generated questions to frame my government curriculum. After first reading about the QFT in the September/ October 2011 edition of the Harvard Education Letter, I changed the way I teach. I […]