Students who learn to interrogate their own questions develop metacognition: thinking about their thinking. Sharing an excellent article from Education Review, as written by Bethan Winn.
Start with the question behind the question
A simple shift educators (and parents) can make is helping students examine their thinking process before they reach for AI tools.
When a student asks “How do plants grow?” pause and ask: “Are you interested in the biological processes, what plants need to survive, or how different environments affect growth?”
It’s not meant to make things harder, it’s meant to make thinking visible. Students who learn to interrogate their own questions develop metacognition: thinking about their thinking. This skill transfers across every subject and life situation.
Try a class ‘question time’: five minutes at the start of a lesson where students generate three questions about the topic before any content is introduced. This simple practice transforms engagement and reveals what students genuinely want to know.
Make thinking social
The dialogic approach to learning has been recognised since ancient Greece, when Socrates showed how thoughtful questioning could unravel certainty and build deeper understanding.
Creating structured opportunities for students to explain their reasoning to each other can encourage deeper thinking.
When studying a complex historical event or current issue, have students work in pairs: one argues for a particular interpretation, the other plays devil’s advocate. Then they swap positions.
Articulating your thinking to someone else exposes the gaps and assumptions, can strengthen weak arguments, and develop empathy for different viewpoints – all essential skills for navigating the real world with all its nuances.
Embrace productive struggle
The best learning happens when students feel slightly uncomfortable. When students encounter challenging problems, resist the urge to immediately provide answers. Instead, normalise phrases like “I’m not sure yet,” or, “Let me think about that differently.”
Create assignments that require human insight. Ask students to interview community members about local history, or observe social dynamics in their school, assignments where there aren’t perfect answers.
These human homework tasks can’t be outsourced to AI because they require presence, empathy, and personal reflection. Honing human skills will always be valuable.
The parent-teacher-student triangle
Critical thinking requires all three stakeholders in education working together. Share simple frameworks with parents for family discussions they can have in the car or at the dinner table.
When their child makes a claim, parents can ask: “What makes you think that? What evidence would change your mind?” And vice versa!
Students must take ownership too. Help them recognise that intellectual growth feels uncomfortable – pushing past a moment of mental strain, a tricky experience or making a mistake is where wisdom is built.
Small steps, big changes
Start with one technique and build from there. Perhaps ask “What questions do we still have?” at the end of each lesson, or implement a regular ‘assumption hunt’ where students examine one belief they’ve never questioned. Unlearning will prove as valuable as learning as the pace of change accelerates.
Critical thinking doesn’t need to be a discrete subject; it’s a lens through which all learning becomes more engaging and meaningful.
Adding some nuance and curiosity to content should be an integral part of each subject rather than a separate, additional burden on the curriculum.
Our students’ future lies not in what they know, but in how they think. By nurturing their natural curiosity, teaching them to question assumptions, and creating space for intellectual risk-taking, we’re giving them tools for challenges we can’t yet imagine.
Bethan Winn is a critical-thinking trainer and author of The Human Edge: Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.
