A Lesson/Facilitation Plan for Practicing Open-Ended Questions
This lesson/facilitation plan is an adaptation of “Open Questions – Role Play,” an exercise by William Chadwick that is available for free via https://www.sessionlab.com/methods/open-questions-role-play.
Learning Objectives
- Learn about open-ended questions and the difference between open-ended questions and close-ended/leading questions
- Develop confidence with asking open-ended questions
- Practice listening to understand and respond
- Consider the value of open-ended questions in conflict resolution facilitation
Context
This lesson/facilitation plan is appropriate for formal and informal settings, from middle- and high-school peer mediation workshops/clubs/classes to college and graduate courses to adult workplaces or community groups. It may be useful in any group setting in which instructors/facilitators are seeking to help participants learn to ask better questions, listen more closely to others, and/or prepare to serve as facilitators or mediators of some kind. As described below, this activity will work best when there are at least two instructors/facilitators. A single instructor/facilitator may modify the activity if needed, and there are suggestions below for that modification.
Materials
- Paper/notecard and writing utensil for each participant
- Timer
- Optional:
- Slides, poster, and/or handout with information about open-ended questions
- Slides, poster, and/or handout with a list of potential fun facts for participants to choose from and instructions for the activity
- Slides, poster, and/or handout with a written example of the activity (such as the one supplied below)
Time
Expect to spend at least 30 to 45 minutes on this activity, depending on the size of the group.
Room Set-Up
Place (or ask the participants to help place) 6 to 12 chairs (with or without desks/tables) in a semicircle, all facing towards the inside. Place one chair (with or without a desk/table) in front of the opening of the semicircle and make sure that it is facing the semicircle. If the class/group is too large to fit in the semicircle, have other chairs outside of the semicircle and explain that everyone will get a turn in the semicircle.
Background and Preparation
Invite the participants (or the first group of participants) to sit in the semicircle.
If there are people who do not fit in the semicircle, explain that those who are not in the semicircle are responsible for observing the action in the semicircle.
Tell the group that they will be practicing the facilitation tool of asking open-ended questions, which is a really important skill when you are trying to understand someone else’s experiences and perspective.
Explain that open-ended questions are questions that do not have yes-or-no answers and that are not leading or loaded. They often begin with “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” or “how.” Using “why” can be tricky because the other person may see the question as judgmental, but “why” questions can also be valuable, when asked in the right situation and with the right tone.
Share examples of open-ended questions and close-ended/leading questions and discuss the difference and the value of open-ended questions. One example pair of questions is “How did that make you feel?” (open-ended) vs. “Were you scared?” (close-ended/leading).
Ask the group for their thoughts on the value of open-ended questions.
The Activity
The following lesson/facilitation plan refers to the co-teacher/assistant/co-facilitator as “Ms. Terry.” The name “Ms. Terry” is just a placeholder for personalization and ease of reference in this lesson/facilitation plan. If you have a co-teacher/assistant/co-facilitator, replace “Ms. Terry” and her pronouns with your co-teacher/assistant/co-facilitator’s name and pronouns throughout the instructions. If you are leading this activity without a co-teacher/assistant/co-facilitator, replace “Ms. Terry” and her pronouns with “a/the volunteer” (or something similar) and explain that the volunteer will change with each round.
The following script explains the activity. Feel free to personalize it and modify it as you see fit.
Ms. Terry will leave the room shortly and, while Ms. Terry is outside, the class/group will collectively decide on one fact that they would like to know about her.
I will provide you with a list of fun fact questions to choose from, and I hope to achieve a quick consensus or do a little vote (if needed). Remember that there will be multiple rounds, so there will be a chance to use several different questions.
- Note to the instructor/facilitator: See the next section for some fun fact question ideas.
Once the class has decided on a fun fact, Ms. Terry will return and sit in the chair in front of the semicircle. She will start off the activity by making a random statement. She might share something she did earlier in the day, something she recently saw, or some other observation.
Next, the first person in the semicircle will ask Ms. Terry an open-ended question based on her initial statement.
Ms. Terry will answer the question, and then the next person will ask a new open-ended question based on Ms. Terry’s answer to the previous question.
This question-and-answer session will continue until the group is able to steer the conversation to the point at which someone is able to ask the original question of interest or the round reaches the 10-minute mark, whichever comes first. If the round reaches the 10-minute mark without getting to the question of interest, the group will share the question they were trying to get to, and the class/group will start a new round.
There will be no random participation in the semicircle. You will have a turn to ask a question based on the order in which you are sitting. If we make it all the way around the semicircle, we’ll go back to the first person in the semicircle.
If one of you asks Ms. Terry a closed or leading question, I will speak up and ask you to reframe your question so that it is open-ended. I will also step in if someone asks a question that is not based on Ms. Terry’s last statement.
Ms. Terry will leave the room again at the end of each round to give the group the chance to decide on another fun fact question, and then we’ll start a new round.
Notes for the Instructor/Facilitator
If there are observers, you can keep them engaged and provide them with another way to learn by tasking them with raising their hand if they notice that someone in the semicircle has asked a close-ended or leading question or if someone has asked a question that does not relate to the answer Ms. Terry provided for the previous question.
For the list of fun facts, favorites are often popular and can be appropriate for all ages, but you are not limited to posing questions related to favorites. Other questions are also appropriate and interesting. Example questions include the following:
- What is your favorite animal?
- What is your favorite candy/food?
- What is your favorite holiday?
- What is your favorite color?
- What is your favorite TV show/book/movie?
- What is a place you really want to visit?
- If you could go back in time, which historical era would you choose to visit?
- What is your biggest (non-serious) fear/superstition/pet peeve?
- What is the first job you ever wanted/dreamed of as a little kid?
- Who is a famous person you admire?
If you are leading this activity without a co-teacher/assistant/co-facilitator, you may choose not to provide the group with a list of fun fact questions (instead just having the class/group come up with options themselves) so that the potential volunteers to serve in the Ms. Terry role, who should change with every round, will not see the list of options.
Set a timer for 10 minutes at the beginning of each round and intervene as necessary (as described above) throughout the round.
Once Ms. Terry answers the participants’ original question or a round reaches the 10-minute mark, congratulate all involved and pass out paper and writing utensils so that participants can take a moment to record their thoughts and feelings.
If the class/group was too large to fit into the semicircle, have the participants who asked at least one question in the previous round swap places with observers and start a new round, sending Ms. Terry out of the room again while the participants decide on a new fun fact to learn about her.
If you are leading this activity without a co-teacher/assistant/co-facilitator, you may ask for a new volunteer to take the place of the previous round’s volunteer at this time.
In each round, start from a different place in the semicircle.
It may be helpful to provide the participants with an example, whether by reading aloud and/or by passing around a handout with a written example. One potential example is below. If you share the example below with the participants, it may be helpful to note that a real round may be longer or shorter than this example. Additionally, if you share the example below, feel free to replace Ms. Terry with the name of the person who will take on that role in your activity, or you can use the generic “Volunteer.”
Example
While Ms. Terry is outside the room, the participants decide that they would like to learn Ms. Terry’s favorite holiday. Now, Ms. Terry has returned and the question-and-answer activity begins.
Ms. Terry: Over the weekend, I played in a basketball tournament.
Participant 1: Where did the tournament take place?
Ms. Terry: It was in a community center in Somewhere, about a 30-minute drive away.
Participant 2: How did you get there?
Ms. Terry: My teammate picked me up, and then we picked up another teammate, so there were three of us in the car.
Participant 3: What did the three of you do in the car during the drive?
Ms. Terry: We talked to each other about our weeks, our jobs, our families, and the news. We had a nice time chatting and laughing.
Participant 4: What makes you laugh?
Ms. Terry: Oh, we’ve known each other for several years and we tease each other and joke about different things in our lives and in the news. I think it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself and with your friends.
Participant 5: Who do you like to laugh with the most?
Ms. Terry: I probably like to laugh the most with my family and my best friends. We’re all so comfortable with each other and we know how to really make each other laugh and how to laugh with and at each other and ourselves.
Participant 6: Who is in your family?
Ms. Terry: My family consists of my parents, my brother, my sister, my brother-in-law, my niece, my nephew, and a bunch of cousins and aunts and uncles.
Participant 7: Besides joking and laughing, what do you like to do with your family?
Ms. Terry: We like to cook and play games.
Participant 8: When do you like to cook and play games with your family?
Ms. Terry: We cook and play games pretty much anytime we are together at someone’s home.
Participant 1: When do you gather at someone’s home?
Ms. Terry: My closest family gathers together relatively frequently because we’re pretty close. More people join in for birthdays and holidays and other special occasions.
Participant 2: What is your favorite holiday?
Ms. Terry: My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. I love how everyone comes and we talk about what we’re grateful for, plus there is a lot of time for cooking and playing games together.
Participant Debrief
After completing at least three rounds, shift to the debrief. Although appropriate debrief questions will vary depending on the age of the participants and the purpose of the activity, there are a few questions, identified below, that will likely be useful to all groups.
Was this easier or harder than you thought it would be?
To break up the activity, it may be helpful to ask participants to place themselves along a spectrum for this question, indicating that participants who thought that the activity was much easier than expected should go to one side of the room, those who thought that it was much harder than expected should go to another, and those who felt that it was about what they expected or somewhere else in the middle should place themselves in the room according to their experience. Then, you may choose to ask some people to explain why they chose to stand in the particular spot they picked.
After completing the activity and participating in the debrief up to this point, what do you think is the value of using open-ended questions when conflicts arise? How might you use open-ended questions to deal with rumors? How might you use open-ended questions when a group of people is trying to work together for the first time?
When you asked your questions, you were trying to steer Ms. Terry in a certain direction. Do you think this sort of questioning is okay in a real facilitation situation? If so, when and how would you decide to do this?
Additional Resources
For more information about open-ended questions, take a look at any of the following articles (presented in alphabetical order, not in order of preference).