Mindset Change: Questioning Skills as a Focus for Educator Professional Development

This chapter reports on a project that combined research with professional development focused on developing student questioning skills in Malaysian educational settings. Originally targeted at preservice teachers, the scope expanded to include academic staff from all teaching areas within Universiti Putra Malaysia following successful workshops for preservice teachers and their lecturers. It was conceived as a strategic response to the stated goal within the Malaysian Curriculum of achieving a shift toward student-centred pedagogies. The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) was first introduced to participants as a structured approach to teaching students how to formulate and refine their own questions and as a means of changing traditional instructor-led classroom dynamics – with the utlimate aim of strengthening student inquiry. Developing questioning skills was therefore presented as fundamental to the critical thinking and problem-solving skills recognised by educators advocating focused development of '21st century skills'. Given that Malaysian student performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has rated poorly in recent years, suggesting that Malaysian students are poor critical and creative thinkers, this intervention seemed timely. Apart from an enthusiastic responses by participants the findings indicate that the QFT is a viable intervention in which student questioning skills can be scaffolded in traditional Malaysian classroom settings. This was emphasised when the QFT was combined with a variety of digital technologies, including social media.