What is learners set questions?

Give learners a topic, text, image or stimulus Ask them to generate questions rather than answer them Sort questions by type: recall, understanding, analysis, evaluation Use the best learner-generated questions to drive the lesson or unit

Learners Set Questions | Rainbow Curriculum

How it works

Learners set questions flips the traditional dynamic. Instead of the teacher asking questions and learners answering, learners generate the questions themselves. This requires deeper engagement with the material because creating a good question demands understanding of what is important, what is unknown, and what would be worth investigating.

Give learners a stimulus: a text, an image, a data set, a historical artefact, or simply the name of a new topic. Ask them to generate as many questions as they can, individually or in pairs. Then sort the questions. Which are simple recall questions? Which require analysis? Which would need investigation to answer? This sorting process teaches learners to recognise different levels of questioning.

The most powerful questions then drive the lesson or unit. When learners are investigating their own questions, motivation is higher than when they are answering the teacher's. Their questions also reveal what they are curious about and what they find confusing, which helps the teacher plan more responsively.

Encourage learners to think about what makes a high-order question. Questions starting with "Why" and "How" tend to require more thinking than those starting with "What" or "When."

Classroom example

A Year 7 Humanities class in a Caerphilly school is starting a unit on migration. The teacher shows a photograph of people crossing the Mediterranean in a small boat. In pairs, learners generate questions. They produce: "Where are they going?", "Why did they leave home?", "How long have they been travelling?", "What will happen when they arrive?", "Should countries have to accept refugees?" The class sorts these from factual to evaluative. The evaluative questions become the big questions for the unit.

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Curriculum for Wales connection

Learners set questions develops the "Plan" strand of thinking skills by building the capacity for inquiry and independent learning. It supports the Four Purposes by developing "ambitious, capable learners" who can direct their own investigation and "ethical, informed citizens" who ask critical questions.

Rainbow Curriculum's Thinking Tools lens helps you ensure that learner-led questioning is planned across your curriculum, not confined to one subject or teacher.

Tips

Start with a rich stimulus. A blank topic name generates fewer and weaker questions than a provocative image or statement.
Do not judge the questions. Accept all of them first, then sort together.
A common pitfall: generating questions but then ignoring them and teaching your own plan anyway. If you ask for questions, use them.
Combine with KWL/KWHL grids: learner-generated questions fill the W column naturally.
Use question sorting to teach Bloom's taxonomy without ever naming it.

Related tools

Big Questions

Open-ended, thought-provoking questions that push learners beyond simple recall into genuine problem-solving, reasoning and creative thinking.

Collaboration in Formulating Questions

Teachers and learners work together to create high-quality questions, building a shared bank of powerful prompts that deepen thinking across lessons.

KWL/KWHL Grids

A simple grid where learners record what they Know, what they Want to find out, How they will find out, and what they have Learned, structuring inquiry from start to finish.

Quescussion

A discussion format where participants may only contribute questions, never statements or answers, creating a deep exploration of a topic through the power of questioning alone.

Question Bubbles

A visual scaffold where question stems are displayed in speech bubbles around a central stimulus, prompting learners to generate questions at different cognitive levels.