Students will try to answer them if their questions connect the topic to something they know, and if they believe their answers will be taken seriously. Of course their initial attempts to answer these questions will be limited, even crude. But their attempts lie on the frontier of their knowledge, where all real learning takes place. Textbooks and library materials become resources for that inquiry rather than boring encyclopediae of disembodied information to be memorized for examinations. Small group work, class discussions, and writing can be used to help students deepen their understanding of the subject, generate new questions, and reflect on the inquiry process.
Groups provide a forum where all students can argue about questions and develop their ideas.
Reports from group representatives stimulate lively whole-class discussion since group members become invested in their work and want to test it in the public forum. Differences that inevitably arise lend new impetus to the inquiry. The professor's role is to mediate the discussion, encouraging students to check their facts, listen thoughtfully to divergent views, and evaluate their reasoning. For longer assignments, students can exchange drafts of work in progress, gaining multiple benefits of giving and receiving criticism and learning about each others' projects. Sharing their writing helps students to discover that to know a subject involves more than accumulating information about it.