Instructional Coach Professional Development

Leading Questions vs Real Questions

As Susan Scott has written, “When someone really asks, we really answer. And somehow both of us are validated” (2002, p. 94). To ask real questions, we must avoid what are commonly referred to as leading questions—those that guide our conversation partners to a destination we have chosen for them (e.g., “Don’t you think your students would learn more if they talked more?”). If we want to work in equal partnerships with collaborating teachers, we need to let go of the notion of leading them anywhere.

When we ask questions that have solutions buried inside them, we take the responsibility for solving the problem away from teachers, thereby silencing them and probably diminishing their motivation. As journalist Kate Murphy writes in You’re Not Listening (2019), “real questions don’t have a hidden agenda of fixing, saving, advising, or correcting,” but rather allow “people to tell their stories, express their realities, and find the resources within themselves to figure out how they feel about a problem and decide on next steps” (p. 147)

What is a real question?

Real questions, then, are questions to which we don’t know the answer, questions that we ask because we are genuinely curious. Our curiosity shows teachers that they are important, and we value what they have to say. Our curiosity also presents the opportunity for teachers to be mutually curious and get wrapped up in the excitement of exploration. Michael Bungay Stanier (2020) advises coaches to be “relentless,” staying “curious long enough to allow the other person to create the insight and space to reach the heart of the matter” (p. 85).

How to Ask Deeper Questions

The foundation of instructional coach professional development is learning how to have productive conversations with the teachers you’re coaching.

A large part of coaching involves thinking along with teachers and sometimes asking questions that let them think more deeply about a topic. A powerful question like Susan Scott’s (2002) “Is it OK if nothing happens?” invites others to think deeper and notice important new insights. To think with a collaborating teacher, the coach first needs to know what the teacher is saying and thinking. This is not as easy as it sounds.

Ask for Clarification

Listening and understanding are two different mental actions, and sometimes, teachers move on to a new topic before coaches are sure what they mean. For this reason, coaches need to ask questions that clarify the collaborating teacher’s thinking. Sometimes, this means specifying what a teacher’s words mean: “When you say engagement, what do you mean by that?” Other times, coaches need to listen for the message amid a long, rambling statement. After a teacher has wound around a topic a fair bit, a coach may need to paraphrase what was said.

Be sure to avoid using clarifying to redirect a conversation: If people think we are putting words in their mouths, they may see our listening as inauthentic and become uncomfortable. On the other hand, when people really feel heard, they relax, open up, and feel less pressure to push their message, making communication much more effective.

Deeper questions don’t probe; they invite collaborating teachers to unpack and explore their thoughts and statements. This can be accomplished by making simple suggestions or asking simple questions like “What else? Tell me more.” Even a single response question (“Never?”) can take a conversation deeper.