If this is the answer, what might be the question?

This activity is good to use at the start of lessons.

It is engaging, pacey and affords learners a high chance of success (thus motivating and engaging them).

It works as follows:

Display an answer on the board and pose the question: ‘If this is the answer, what might be the question?’ Invite learners to list as many possible questions as they can inside two minutes. The activity works equally well when learners are in pairs as when they work individually.

Here are some examples:

• Answer: Dancing

• Possible questions: How do some people like to enjoy themselves? What is one way to exercise? What word could we use to describe the movement of particles that have been excited?

• Answer: Oxbow lake

• Possible questions: What do you call a crescent shaped lake? What can erosion create in a meandering river? Of what is the Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee an example?

You might want to caveat the task with a further statement of some kind, for example:

• Come up with as many questions as you can.
• Try to come up with the most unusual question in the class.
• Aim for three questions that are all completely different.
• When you have come up with three questions, consider what other answers you might be able to give to these.
• Use the word ‘justify’ in one of your questions.

When learners have come up with their questions, choose a few people to share their thoughts with the class.

This opportunity can be used to discuss the structure of the questions and to consider why they might be good or how they might be developed.

Random Questions

Create a large set of questions that are generic and that can be applied to different material.

Write each question on a separate piece of paper and put all the pieces of paper in a box.

Keep this in your room – you will be able to use it again and again.

Divide the class into groups of three. Take the box round and present it to each group in turn.

Learners withdraw a piece of paper and then read out the question.

That question is to form the basis of the group’s work; they will spend the next part of the lesson discussing and investigating it.

Give learners an appropriate amount of time in which to develop some answers to their question.

How long you give them will depend to on the topic to which the questions are being applied and the nature of the questions themselves.

In some cases, questions will be straightforward and so will require a short period of time to answer. In other cases, questions are likely to be complex or challenging and will therefore require longer to answer.

When the time is up, invite one member of each group to act as an envoy.

They should visit each of the other groups in turn and explain what their question was and what answers they and their colleagues came up with.

The activity can end at this point. or you might like to introduce an additional element where the class discusses two or three of the questions as a whole group.

(You can pick out those which are of most interest or which are likely to generate the most rewarding discussion.)

The activity is best used when learners have already spent some time studying a topic.

This is because they will have greater means at their disposal with which to engage with the questions.

If the activity is done near the start of a unit of work, there is a risk of the learners not being able to access the questions, undermining the activity.