A crash course in writing good driving questions

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One of the most difficult things about planning a project-based learning unit is writing the driving question (DQ).

And no wonder! According to the Innovation Unit’s guide to project-based learning, a good driving question is a question that:

• people ask in the ‘real world’
• has no single, easy answer, and stretches students’ intellectual muscles
• ignites students’ imaginations.

The question should also address content from the curriculum and allow for the development of 21st century skills. Students also have to be able to answer it thoroughly with the time and resources available.

Add all that to the fact that the whole project hinges on a good driving question, and you can understand why DQs are not only very important, but very challenging to create. There’s a lot of pressure to get it right!

But let’s start with the basics. First, a reminder of what a driving question is:

A driving question is the ‘big’ question that provides the stimulus for a project. 

According to the Buck Institute of Education (BIE), there are 2 basic types of driving question:

     1) A DQ that specifies a product to be created, a task to be done, or a                     problem to be solved.

     2) A DQ that focuses on a philosophical or debatable issue, or an intriguing           topic.

Where can we find inspiration?

Creating a question that fulfils the criteria listed at the outset and has enough power to drive the project as far as you want it to go is not easy. It’ll take time, trial and error, and lots of discussion with your colleagues.

Some of the best DQs come from the students themselves. Do this by introducing your class to the topic you’d like to be the focus of your project – it should be presented in a relevant, thought-provoking manner, perhaps through a current news article.

For example, in recent news, we’re heard that doctors are rapidly running out of medicines to treat infections, as certain strains of bacteria are growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics. This could mean that in the very near future, a minor scratch or infection after a routine operation could kill. Think of the implications of this! By discussing the issue and doing some relevant research, students can come up a question that will guide a project along this theme. For instance, ‘How might running out of antibiotics affect our daily lives here in the UK?’ or ‘How did past civilisations cope without medicines for infections and other common ailments?’

Driving questions that are specific to your local area can also be very effective. Recently, one science teacher at a school in the San Francisco Bay Area teamed up with art and government teachers to implement a project on the devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. They chose the driving question: ‘Who is to blame for the oil spill?’ Because the students lived in the area of the spill, and could remember it happening, there was an immediacy and a connection to the people most affected by the disaster that helped engage them in the topic.

And there can be more than one driving question! As the project develops, you may find that other questions need to be asked and answered before the final, overarching question can be explored to its fullest extent, or for the desired curriculum content to be fully covered.

For example, in the oil spill project cited above, the teachers realised their students needed a greater understanding of the impact of the disaster and also the clean up efforts afterwards before they could take part in the final exhibition - a simulated town meeting in which students played the various roles of residents and other stakeholders deciding how to deal with the oil spill. Thus, students also investigated the best strategies for cleaning up oil through scientific experiments, and explored the impact of the spill on the Bay’s wildlife through art and sculpture.

Creating your driving question

You can find a raft of driving questions on the internet to be adapted according to your needs. Some of the best example questions we found include:

• Is war ever justified?
• Should present governments apologise for the wrongs of past governments?
• How do communities evolve over time?
• Should we allow for genetic engineering to prevent diseases and illnesses?
• What is the impact of climate on civilisation?
• How do maths and science influence artistic expression?
• How can an idea be transformed into a product that could make us millions?
• Are we and our technologies a product of our ancestors?
• Why do humans need to protect the earth, and how can we as 12-year-olds play a role in this?

You can use the table below to practice writing driving questions by framing initial words, people or entities, actions or challenges, and audience/purpose. It’s also available to download as a tubric template from BIE.

Framing words	Person or entity	Action or challenge	Audience or purpose
How can…	I, We	Build… Create… Make…	Real-world problem
How should…	We as (roles/occupations)	Design… Plan…	For a public audience
Should…	Town, City, County	Solve…	For a school
Could…	State, Nation	Write…	For a classroom
What…	Community, Organisation	Propose… Decide…	For an online audience

So there you have it! A basic guide to writing a good, solid driving question. For more information, follow the links embedded in this post – there are some really brilliant resources out there to make use of.

What driving questions have you come up with? Share your examples by commenting below.

Don't forget to come back for the next post in this series! Due out next week, it will focus on the main things you need to consider when planning your project.

Keep up with this blog by following us on Twitter @TeachingTimes or liking us on Facebook.

Image source: xpotentialselling.com

The 8 essential elements of project-based learning

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We kickstart our new series on the practicalities of PBL with the 8 essential ingredients for perfect project-based learning.

Project-based learning seems to be the next big thing in the education world. And it’s really not hard to see why when you read of the amazing projects going on in schools all over the world. You can almost taste the excitement of both students and teachers in these accounts.

But what makes for good project-based learning? After all, we’re all familiar with the dreary ‘design a poster’ or ‘create a powerpoint’ type projects so common in our own youth.

Well, first off, a good project has to be meaningful to the students. It also has to fulfil an educational purpose. But that’s not all. Overall, there are 8 elements which are absolutely essential for any project to be a success:

1. Curriculum content

The project has to be aligned with the curriculum. It can cover curricular content in a range of subject areas, but there has to be a focus on teaching students important knowledge outlined in the curriculum.

2. 21st Century skills

Along with curricular knowledge, the project also needs to target the development of so -called ‘21st century skills’ and competencies. But what can we class as 21st century skills?

The University of Melbourne’s ATC21S project puts them into four categories:

• ways of thinking – creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning
• ways of working – communication and collaboration
• tools for working – information and communications technology (ICT) and information literacy
• skills for living in the world – citizenship, life and career, and personal and social responsibility

So it’s quite broad then! Clearly, targeting them all would be impossible, so your PBL unit should target the development of a just a few. You’ll also need to plan ways to assess this. Creating a rubric is a good idea. This website offers loads of ready made ones!

3. Need to know

The project has to motivate students to want to learn the new content knowledge or gain new skills. They have to find it meaningful, and they have to find the topic, driving question (see next essential element below) and tasks genuinely interesting and relevant.

You need an exciting and motivational entry event to introduce pupils to the project. If this isn’t dramatic or memorable enough, day one of the project will feel like any other day – in fact, it’ll feel worse, because it'll seem like more work than usual!

4. Driving question (DQ)

The driving question is exactly what it sounds like – the question or stimulus that drives your project. 

Your DQ needs to capture the project’s main focus, but be understandable (not too ‘text-booky’ or academic) and inspiring. It also needs to be open-ended – it can’t lead students towards one particular answer, and students must be able to answer it thoroughly with the resources and time available.

Not a simple task, we’ll admit, but never fear! In the next article in this series of blog posts, we’ll be considering good driving questions and how to go about creating your own.

5. Student voice and choice

The idea behind this element is allowing students to make decisions affecting the content of their project or how it's conducted. Student voice is already quite a common feature of many classrooms, but in PBL, it’s got to be more than deciding how to divide tasks within a team or which website to use for research. Students need the opportunity to express ‘voice and choice’ on more important matters such as which topics to study, the questions they investigate, the resources they use, the product they create, their use of time and organisation of tasks.

Students need to work independently from the teacher, but don’t make them work too much on their own! They’ll need ample guidance from you, especially if they’re new to PBL and its procedures. You’ll also need to provide sufficient feedback and in-depth critiques as the project and their product progress (see ‘Reflection and revision’ below).

6. In-depth enquiry

This element is all about rigour. The project has to be academically rigorous. It can’t just be an extended activity – it has to be an enquiry.

It also needs to be scaffolded, growing deeper as students gather and interpret data to answer the driving question, ask further questions of their own, develop and evaluate their solutions and build evidence for their final answer.

Getting the balance right here can be tricky. The inquiry can’t be too narrow, but it also can’t try and include too many side topics or task.

7. Reflection and revision

There have got to be plenty of structured opportunities throughout the project for students to give and receive feedback about the quality of their work-in-progress. Constructive critiques play a large part in this. You, as a teacher, need to provide them, but students will also need to be taught how to give them themselves to their peers. They also need to be able to reflect on and critique their own work.

Part of the assessment of the students’ final product (see below) should be how well they've used the feedback you and their peers have given to improve and refine it.

8. A final product presented to an audience

PBL is not PBL without a final product and an audience. Students should present or exhibit their work to an audience – and it’s got to be more than just you and their classmates. Get other people involved, both from within and outside the school. You could also have students target an online audience.

Another important part of the final product/exhibition is the students’ explanation of how and why they did what they did. This could be presented orally or in written form – whichever’s more appropriate. This has got to have depth – students need to be able to defend and explain their reasoning behind their choices in detail, as well as make it clear that they understood the inquiry process, and prove that they took the feedback they received throughout the project on board to improve their work.

An intimidating task?

So that’s what makes a good PBL project! Worried?

Admittedly, setting up a PBL unit is no small feat – it’s like conducting a massive orchestra, getting all the instruments to come together at the right time and in the right way – but the rewards can be immense.

In order to help you along the way to those immense rewards, we're launching a brand new series on the practicalities of project-based learning. We’ll be covering driving questions, planning your project, creating the perfect entry event, the art of critiquing and much more.

All the information will be from real teachers who’ve tried this stuff in their classroom – tried it and had the most mindblowingly awesome time with their students they want to share it with the rest of the world.

Our next post (everything you need to know about good PBL driving questions) will be out next week. Keep an eye out!

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The 8 essential elements of PBL featured in this article were inspired by this rubric from the Buck Institute of Education, available to download for free.