The 5 Golden Rules for Asking Brilliant Questions

But how do you ask brilliant questions? And what is a brilliant question anyway? This is something that I've been thinking about and working on for the last 20 years. And when I ask educators and guides how they make their programmes more interactive, 99% of them will answer with the phrase by asking questions.

But if you ask questions in the wrong way, for example, questions that are too complex or too simplistic, or maybe you're asking more than one question at a time or being too vague or too specific, it won't actually help your program to be any more interactive or engaging. And in fact, asking the wrong questions or in the wrong way could actually shut people down and stop them participating at all through frustration or irritation.

So how can you phrase your questions in the best way possible? There's loads of advice out there and lots and lots of books you can read, but it can end up confusing you further. So I've tried to simplify it here and I've narrowed it down to five golden rules to asking brilliant questions.

So let's start with number one. The first rule is knowing the difference between open-ended and closed questions and when to use them. So most people say they know the difference between open ended or open as they're sometimes called and closed questions. but they're not always aware of the best times that you can use both of them. So both types, both open and closed, have circumstances in which they are useful to use.

As a quick reference guide, a closed question can be answered with either a single word or a short phrase. So quite often yes or no answers or brief factual information. An open-ended or open question invites many possible answers and therefore encourages and jump starts discussion. So, if we go and look at closed questions, some of the characteristics of them are that they're quick, you can get clear information right away, and you can get a very specific answer.

So closed questions are useful for finding out information and you can use them in your programs to perhaps find out more about your participants. You can also use them throughout your session to check in with your participants and to remind yourself of information about your group.

However, closed questions don't actually give you very much information. And sometimes they don't really tell you what you need to know. You may need to know more or you may want more information, but all you get is a one-word answer. They can also close off discussion. So use closed questions sparingly.

If you use too many closed questions in a row, you can make a person feel like they're being put on the spot or grilled or being interviewed. So try not to ask more than two or three closed questions in a row. Also, be aware of asking closed questions that ask for recall of specific information. Such as a question like, Does anyone know the date when such and such was abolished or ended or started? Worse still would be to add on the end of it, you all know this, you did this at school.

This actually happened on a programme I was on, and it really only ever works as a question if the group are all specialists in that particular subject. If you haven't been lucky enough to cover that time period in history at school or that subject, then you're not going to feel very good about not knowing the answer to this obvious question. And it does make people feel reluctant to speak and to participate.

So just remember do not assume your group has any prior knowledge of any of the subjects you're covering. You need to find out their individual levels as much as you can and you need to adjust your content accordingly. These uh closed recall questions only lead to certain members of the group answering. That's if anyone knows the answer to the question, and they do nothing to open up a discussion.

They also lead your sessions down a sort of who knows the answer path and those who don't know the answers end up feeling less smart than everyone else. And that's never a good feeling. So start to pay attention to the questions you are asking your participants. Think about how many closed questions you ask in a row. Did you perhaps just ask a closed question when an open-ended question would have given you more information?

But don't worry, if you do ask a closed-ended question and you want to open it up, you can always open it up with the phrase, if so, please tell me in what ways. And it really works to open up your closed questions. So closed questions do encourage this question ping-pong, their back this back and forth of questions. And once you're past your introduction with your group, you want to be aiming for something different.

You want to be aiming for chatting, wondering, puzzling, and discussing instead. So let's now move on to open-ended questions. So open-ended questions encourage longer answers and the type of answers that might come from knowledge, from thoughts, from feelings or from experience. Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd.

They have no right or wrong or predictable answers. So when you use open-ended questions, you'll find out more information and you'll get a fuller explanation. You'll also get to hear what the person is thinking. Open-ended questions often begin with certain words, things like what, why, how, describe, explain, and tell me. So questions like what interests you about? What do you think? What are the reasons? Or what if I was to say?

and so on. And the beauty of using open-ended questions is that as people reveal more about their thoughts, they are giving you more information about which you can pose more questions. However, there are some disadvantages to open-ended questions. Sometimes you might get too much information or you might actually get the runaround from people. You might not get the information you need or not actually understand everything that's being told to you.

And also open ended questions can sometimes produce answers that are just too long or too long winded. So here's an exercise you can do to get better at formulating different types of questions. This is question storming, which is similar to brainstorming. So first find an image of an artwork online. So try Google Arts and Culture perhaps or wiki art to start with. Spend a moment or several moments looking at the image, and then you want to set a timer for three minutes.

In those three minutes, I'd like you to write down as many questions as you can about the image. Don't stop to judge, don't stop to correct your questions. Let the questions flow and go for volume. Keep your pen or pencil on the paper. When the timer goes off after three minutes, you want to read back over your questions. Put an O next to any open questions and a C next to the closed questions. And then think, how many did you generate of each? What did you notice from doing this exercise?

Doing this exercise regularly will really help you to get better at formulating different types of questions and also at being more aware of the type of questions you are generating.

So let's move on to the second golden rule. The second golden rule is very quick and simple. It's to use the conditioner. So one of the easiest ways to make your questions more open-ended and to receive more answers is to use the conditional in your questions, using words like think, could, would or must. These words signal that there are many ways to answer the question, and typically the answers themselves stimulate more questions.

So there's a huge difference between asking someone what is it and what do you think it might be. So here's another tip, thinking about creating a question of the week using the conditional. Then try and use that question as often as possible with groups during that time. After you've asked the question, then show interest in the participant's response by asking follow-up questions like Tell me more and what did you see that made you say that?

So moving on now to the third golden rule, and this is all about adding a structure to your questions. So once you start to feel more confident using open-ended questions, and you will, but you need to give yourself time Practice phrasing questions in this way. You can then add a structure to your questioning, and this will help you think about what to ask when when you're asking questions. Sometimes you ask a question and you don't get a response. You get silence or tumble.

And sometimes it's because you've asked too much, or the question is too vague or too simplistic, or people just need a chance to get warmed up. Sometimes they need to get to know their environment, the group they're with, and you before they feel comfortable. So asking that big blue sk blue sky question right off the bat is only going to give you crickets. It's only going to give you silence. You need a structure.

And you don't want your carefully crafted open ended questions tumbling out in any old order. You really want your discussion to be a rounded whole rather than a loose muddle of open ended questions. So I follow a basic structure based on the thinking routine called peeling the fruit for the structure of my questions.

I start with observation and description questions, then I move on to questions about the main body of the discussion, for example building explanations, identifying and considering different viewpoints, and making connections. Throughout the discussion you can raise questions, puzzles and wonderings and ask follow-up questions that request evidence. And at the end of your discussion, you want your questions to be about summarising, capturing the heart and forming conclusions.

want to have a go at structuring your questions. Perhaps take your list of open and closed questions that you created for rule number one and now read them through and then categorize them. Are they introduction questions based on observation, description, or does that question fit fit more into the building interpretation or explanations category? Or is it a wondering, a puzzling, or a follow up question? Or finally, have you written any concluding questions?

It's worth looking at how many questions you created in each category. Do you perhaps need to add some more questions in some of the other categories? And did you notice any tendencies or patterns as you went through the process too? And it's a really good exercise to do to see what types of questions you create on a regular basis and what categories they fit into.

So the fourth golden rule is also a quick one. Don't forget to follow up. So when you receive an answer to a question from someone, don't forget to respond and follow up. Have some interesting phrases or follow up phrases in your back pocket that you can rely on. Say something like, That's interesting. What else? Or what did you see that made you say that? Or could you give me an example of where you see or why you felt?

If you don't understand the response, make sure you also ask a question for more information to clarify. Make sure that you take the time not just to hear what someone's saying, but to really understand and value what they have said. So the final golden rule, number five, is a bit of a shortcut, and it's all about using thinking routines. So as we discovered in episode three, thinking routines are short, easy to learn and teach frameworks that get used in a regular fashion.

And the questions in each thinking routine are carefully worded to allow for multiple interpretations and to open up discussion. So the more you use thinking routines, the more these questions become second nature. And the more they become second nature, the easier it is for you to word your questions in the same way. And I believe that regular use of thinking routines will help you to phrase better questions. However, you do have to use the routines regularly so that you become used to them.

So here's a summary of those five golden rules again. Number one is knowing the difference between open and closed questions and when to use them. Number two is using the conditional. Number three is structuring your questions. Number four is following up on your questions. And the final one is using thinking routine.

So you can always foster engagement and interaction by asking questions, but they need to be good questions. Questions that will encourage your participants to be active rather than passive. And by using questions you will go to unexpected places, you will sometimes go off on tangents, but that's okay because we shouldn't ever be doing everything according to a script anyway. So work on your questions.

really spend time crafting and formulating them. And then you can use these questions as catalysts, encouraging your participants to discover, ponder and reflect more. And you'll find that by using better questions, both you and your participants will have a more enjoyable, memorable, and unique experience.

If you'd like to be taken step by step through the process of improving your questioning technique, You can also take my special 90-minute recorded masterclass with lots of tools and exercises to help you consistently create, sort and evaluate your own brilliant questions. that will delight and engage your audience. So in this class

You will learn about the different types of questions and when to use them. You'll learn simple yet powerful ways to generate, formulate, sort and evaluate questions in response obviously to artworks and images. You'll learn to analyse, track and reflect on your own questions and also turn closed questions into open questions and vice versa. Finally, you'll also learn new thinking routines, techniques, and activities that you can use regularly to perfect your questioning technique.

So when you purchase this recorded class you'll also receive receive a link to the recording and all the resources. So there's a class workbook, there's slides and PDFs that go with the class. And the class is interactive as all my classes are and it's packed full of exercises for you to do and practical examples. I'll include a link to the questioning class in the show notes for you.

So that's it for today's episode giving you five golden rules for asking brilliant questions. I hope you've enjoyed it. Next time we'll be talking about facilitation. So join me then.