Tips & Tricks

To fully utilize the method, you should:

• Ask questions that are truly relevant and pertinent to resolving your problem. Guide your students during the session when necessary.
• Highlight the most important points in your (or your students’) answers.
• Create relevant action plans in relation to the key points. Analyze the responses and work upon them onwards.
• It is possible, once the six fundamental questions posed by this model have been answered, to repeat the questions from a different perspective. all questions every time to gain success in looking at a problem from all angles.
• The 5 Ws and H tool can be particularly suitable for fostering longer, better conversations, whether with your peers or with/among pupils. By asking questions that require you to provide a long and detailed answer on a particular topic, you encourage reflection and the participants’ ability to express themselves, thus allowing them to deepen their analysis of a particular topic or issue.
• This technique provides a comprehensive view of the problem to be addressed, so it can be used in a problem-solving approach in classroom activities.

By cons, when applying this technique should be avoided:

• Ask questions that are cumbersome and difficult to answer at first. You can deep-dive on those questions once you reach the basis of the problem/idea/topic being discussed.
• It tries to base the answers to the questions posed by this technique on objective data as far as possible, so that the consensus or solution reached after the process of questioning and reflection is effective and feasible, and not based on ambiguous answers based on ideas or subjectivities. This will be particularly important depending on the subject matter.