Asking questions is an important cognition fostering and self-regulating strategy for learners (Rosenshine, Meister &Chapman, 1996).Chin and Osborne (2008) found that self-formulated questions of learners have great potential for fostering intrinsic motivation and (meta) cognitive development. However, many studies show learners are rarely stimulated in their questioning and seldom ask questions in classrooms (e.g. Good, Slavings, Harel & Emerson, 1987). Teachers often discard the potential of self-formulated questions of their learners for teaching and learning (Chin & Osborne, 2008). However, in the last decade policy-makers and educational researchers in Europe have shown increased interest in the potential of questioning for teaching and learning and programs have been established to transform teacher practices in science education to more extended investigative forms of learning (European Commission, 2004; OECD, 2006; Osborne & Dillon, 2008; Rocard et al., 2008).  At the same time, many schools express their need to work more frequently and effectively with student questioning, since they seek to motivate students, want to challenge them at their own levels, and strive to support self-regulated learning. This study aims at an investigative form of education, we call Question-driven Learning (QDL), in which teachers offer ample opportunity for questioning by learners. We define QDL as a student-centered form of learning in which learners articulate information seeking questions in order to explore personal interests within a certain domain (c.f. Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1992; Shodell, 1995; Wells, 2001).

Many teachers in Europe have a positive stance towards forms of inquiry learning such as QDL (Sikko, Lyngved & Pepin, 2012), however, teachers find it difficult to implement (Osborne & Dillon, 2008). One of the major concerns of teachers in inquiry learning is to find the balance between attaining the demands of their National Curriculum Standards and creating an open learning environment which is necessary for fostering successful question behavior (Wells, 2001). Teachers feel unsure about setting the appropriate goals, organizing the learning environment, guiding the students to successful inquiry and monitoring the individual and collective learning outcomes and express their need for support in the design, implementation, guidance and evaluation of QDL (Stokhof & De Vries, 2010).

This study focuses on the implementation of a principle-based scenario that supports effective questioning behavior in the primary (social) science curriculum by means of digital mind mapping. The scenario is set up around a core curriculum, consisting of key concepts within a certain domain and topic, which all students are expected to attain. This core curriculum provides the conceptual scaffold for fostering collective knowledge building, as well as providing opportunities for individual learners to select a topic of interest to inquire into. A similar approach to the curriculum is taken by Applebee (1996). Similarly, Scardamalia, and Bereiter (2006) use “big ideas” as the focus in knowledge-building. In the scenario, digital mind mapping is the central tool to design and represent the core curriculum, to assess the relevance, feasibility and learning potential of children's questions and to share the questions' learning outcomes. Mind Mapping has been shown to be a powerful educational tool for visualizing  learning content (Koznov & Pliskin, 2009), but its use for knowledge construction on the basis of learners’ questions is yet to be fully explored.

The goal of this study is to test the support of digital mind mapping in a QDL scenario for teachers and learners. The following research question will be answered: How can digital mindmapping enhance effective questioning behavior and the teachers' support of  learners' questioning behavior? Furthermore, the study seeks to collect data around the process of implementation of QDL and professionalization of the involved teachers in the schools.

Applebee, A.N. (1996). Curriculum as conversation: Transforming traditions of teaching and learning. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Chin, C., & Osborne, J. (2008). Students’ questions: A potential resource for teaching and learning science. Studies in Science Education,44(1), 1–39. Good, T. L., Slavings, R. L., Harel, K. H., & Emerson, H. (1987). Student passivi-ty: A study of question asking in K-12 classrooms. Sociology of Education, 60,181-199. European Commission. (2004). Europe Needs More Scientists: Report by the High Level Group on Increasing Human Resources for Science and Technology. Brussels. European Commission. Rocard, M. et al. (2007). Science Education Now: A Renewed Pedagogy for the Future of Europe. Brussels. Directorate General for Research, Science, Economy and Society. McKenny. S., & Reeves, T. (2012). Conducting educational design research. Londen: Routledge. Nieveen, N. (2009). Formative evaluation in educational design research. In T. Plomp, & N. Nieveen (Eds.), An Introduction to Educational Design Research. (pp. 89-102). Enschede: SLO. OECD. (2006). Evolution of Student Interest in Science and Technology Studies Policy Report. Paris. OECD. Osborne, J., & Dillon, J. (2008). Science education in Europe: Critical reflections: a report to the Nuffield Foundation. Nuffield Foundation. Koznov, D., & Pliskin, M. (2009). Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning with Mind-Maps. In Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation (pp. 478-489). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer. Rosenshine, B., Meister, C., & Chapman, S. (1996). Teaching students to generate questions: A review of the intervention studies. Review of Educational Research, 66(2), 181-221. Scardamalia, M. & Bereiter, C. (1992). Text-based and knowledge based questioning by children. Cognition and Instruction, 9(3), 177-199. Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2006). Knowledge building: Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 97-118). New York: Cambridge University Press Shodell, M. (1995). The question-driven classroom: Student questions as course curriculum in biology. The American Biology Teacher, 57(5), 278-281. Stokhof, H., & De Vries, B. (2010). Naar meer gestructureerde vrijheid: Leer-stofborging in vraaggestuurde leeromgevingen.[ Towards structured freedom: attaining the curriculum in Question-driven Learning]. Nijmegen: Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen. Van den Akker, J. (2003). Curriculum perspectives: An introduction. In J.J.H. van den Akker, W. Kuiper, & U. Hameyer (Eds.), Curriculum landscapes and trends. (pp. 1-10). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Wells, G. (2001). Action, talk, and text: Learning and teaching through inquiry. Teachers College Press.