What is the purpose of using questions in a learning environment? Why is there a tendency for silence when instructors take the pause to invite: "Any questions?" How can we encourage conversation culture, and therefore, learner-centered constructivist culture for students to own their learning?
This Learner-Centered Idea for Teaching [LIFT] could have a few answers.

This whole deck is dedicated to this question, and it does so in direct relation to instructional purpose.

Questions are invitation for dialogue. They can be dynamic and contextual, but most importantly, their function is to establish relationships.

But asking questions to encourage strong relationships, whether with others or content, is a skill, not a given.

The skill is there for most, evident in many social and professional situations. So the question is, why doesn't that skill seem so effortless when building relationships with learners?

"Any questions?" presumes a listener / conversational partner knows how to frame their understanding. It is unbelievably wide open and can't necessarily be aligned to gauge content uptake relative to a course's objectives. It also doesn't necessarily situate accountability or learners' attending to the informational moment.

A culture of conversation begins with context. Questions that combine immediate subject matter or content into relation with the actual bodies working with it can both shape the environment as much as reflect it.

Possibilities for the HOW= A prompt for describing process and measurement criteria.

Evaluative questions are tricky. Opinions in and of themselves within education don't display learning until they display reasonable justification.

But "how" is also a way to tease out process. Move into simulation. Revisit procedure. We can make a case for "how" where safety procedures are important in the chemistry lab.

Learner response, adopted from the theory of reader-response, promotes personal perspective and bodily experience.

Andragogy states that using learners' experiences constructs buy-in. Inclusion validates their knowing as much as a respect. Now consider: Why does this have to be an adult-only strategy?

Personal perspective benefits from challenge sometimes. When considering how possible responses can shape a learning environment, a small alteration might ask "How would [X] apply to one of these ideas right now? This can invite learners to answer from the"Other" side.

Possibilities for the WHY= Evaluation and Casuation.

Why questions can yield information about how deeply students are going into a piece of content or an idea.

Presented in some forms, these questions can explore causal relationships. A possible strategy when discussing historical events or consequences of choice.

Why = Justification and Comparison.

Justifying one's perspective can debunk assumptions of fact.

Use the same question's structure to pose the opposite, and there's a way to promote the compare and contrast.

Possibilities for the WHERE = destination focused, whether a concept, time, or a physical space.

Where questions have a very close link to the body. They're often used to link to physical spaces. The idea gets us from here to there, and the way the body does that requires all of the places in-between.

Just like all of these prompts, there are so many other options. "Where" calls out conclusions and assumptions; encourages speculation, imagination, and analysis; examines consequences; moves an entire scenario forward; tests logic and reasoning that links the body's understanding to the content.

Just where CAN better questions take in-class instruction next?

Possibilities for the WHAT = Information, definition, boundary-setting.

The first question a child asks is not "Why?." It's "What?". Basic identification. To satisfy their desires, they need to know the word for "cookie" to be able to get one. Then they ask why they can't have it.

Still, "what" doesn't have to be hard-lined in its identifications or prescriptive in its definitions.

Need a way to work social or touchy issues into a course?

Add the third-person framework to the question to nudge into trying to be more objective, less confrontational, or attacking. By putting a kind of role-play element into the response, there is a sense of more security when articulating different perspective in the issue. It also limits a mere agree or disagree without justification.

To be more direct about a role-play aspect, try a preface to the prompt: "If you were the author / person being interviewed, what would you say and/or do if...?"

Speculation. The dreaming question. The hypothetical. This empowers some learners but scares others.

To truly hear students' voices, offer students choices.
This is a question for instructors.

Let Go: Encourage student preparation, check understanding, motivate students to feel good, increase participation and buy-in all by curating students' questions.

Keep in mind, the prompts and directions to encourage really good questions still depends on Instructor's skill to deliver them. Being overt and teaching the skills for developing a student's question makes question-response climate stronger.

Bonus encouragement: For courses that require exams, consider what could be gained by offering students that you will use some of THEIR questions in the exam.

Yes.

Then what?

To evaluate the use of the yes/no question, have an idea of what you can do and are going to do with the outcome.

That goes for every question used as a "prop" in class. If you're going to depend on it, it's got to have a purpose in the play. Be direct to validate how students generate change and dynamism in the classroom. Not "responding" to responses models dropping the conversation, which is a common complaint in environments such as Discussion Board interactions.

We can't punish introverts or those who take longer to synthesize information to formulate questions. It's an enormous risk to present a gap in understanding. A risk that sometimes instructors don't take themselves in the fear of expertise coming into question.

It's possible to make the questioning pause active in the body.

Putting opinion prompts around the room and asking everyone to choose is a classwide risk. Introducing sign-language for options where students give a signal at the level of their chest moves the body and can minimize public risk or peer swaying.

Polling anonymity is more easily accomplished with technology. Many use clickers, but there are free polling platforms that embrace students' devices, and can even be embedded into PowerPoint.

It's a double-edged sword that plays on instructor power to state that anyone who doesn't respond will be directly prompted to explain, but it can be a motivational tool for participation. Context and instructor preference is the key to deciding to use the tactic.

A question of synthesis and reflection.

This question is not only a checkpoint, but also a habit-building perception check. If students are overtly encouraged to be recursive and tie new to pre-existing, even jotting their answers down on a timeline, then it's possible to go back and show them where they were at the beginning of a semester, where they are at the end, and any significant learning moments within an individual student's classroom experience.

This question occurred to a job candidate during an interview. What it accomplishes is receiving insight into what the interviewers are thinking.

As a self-check in education, it's also possible to gauge interest and opportunity for better teaching (or better interviewing outcomes).

On the other side, put the learners in your place with this question. The phrasing narrows in on content and in-the-moment awareness of the learning climate for all stakeholders. It also lessens the risk of vulnerability where a learner might be revealing a gap in understanding.

In its rhetoric, the question offers a moment of humanizing vulnerability and a validation of learners' curiosity on their terms.

Students may be more motivated to ask questions and take risks when responding if we reveal our own accountability and vulnerability in conversation culture.

Preparing for question-response exchanges increases the chance of success.

Here's a challenge:
Have students call you on asking "Any questions?" and give yourself some kind of penalty.

The trade-off is the opportunity to bring up the alternative: What kind of question should I have asked there?