Student Engagement - Asking Questions and Being Curious About Images

I am always challenging my students to ask better questions and to be curious enough to explore new ideas. Unfortunately, this is not a skill many are able to or willing to practice without my constant encouragement. I do my best to always try to build the opportunity for students to ask in most of our daily activities.

Today I wanted to share one of our favorite activities connected to questions, curiosity, and visuals. "What's Going on with this Image?

The activity that I am sharing today was inspired several years ago by the New York Times resource, "What's Going On in This Picture?"

The activity usually starts with an image connected to something we are about to explore in class. Students usually know the unit and maybe even the topic, but I try not to use any images that won't inspire questions. I usually use images, but I think this activity could be adapted to text, graphs, audio, video, or something else?  

Here is an overview of the activity. At the end of this post, I will share some additional templates and resources that could be adapted for different classrooms. 

1. I use Google Slides to share an image with no caption. Here is a sample connected to renewable energy. In this sample there are 5 image slides, we did one slide a day to start class. I also tried to help a little by providing a list of the 5 major renewables on slide 2. 

2. Students work in small groups to make observations about the image and create questions connected to their observations.

3. I usually ask the students to write down at least two questions on paper or add them to a Pear Deck response. Sometimes, I use a Wakelet collection so everyone can see each group's questions. The questions have to be based on something observable in the image and can't just be generic like, "What is this a picture of?"

4. When the students are done submitting questions, each table is allowed to ask me one question about the image. I will answer the question to the best of my knowledge without providing additional information. 
Sometimes they ask questions that I don't know the answer to, so they can then ask their second question. If I can't answer either question then we move to another group. We will usually discuss why I couldn't answer any of the missed questions at the end of the activity. Sometimes it comes down to my lack of knowledge and other times the question wasn't written in a way that I could provide an answer. 

5. When all the questions have been answered, I let the whole classroom make three guesses about what is happening in the picture. We celebrate if they get any of the guesses right. 

We usually have fun with this and most students get much better at planning and asking questions as the year goes on.

Resources

• Template - What Questions Do You Have About Image?
• Pear Deck Response Sample
• What's Going on in This Picture? - Wakelet Wonder Wall Setup

Let me know if you have any questions ; )