What if AI helped your students ask the driving question?
Discover how an AI companion can guide students to craft meaningful, rigorous driving questions—and make PBL easier to launch.
Hey there,
One of the biggest challenges in project-based learning is that students are rarely taught how to create the driving question—a skill just as essential as managing tasks, doing research, or collaborating with peers.
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Too often, driving questions are created for students rather than with them. While teacher-designed questions may be clear and manageable, they bypass an essential opportunity: helping students learn to ask meaningful, open-ended questions themselves. Developing a driving question isn’t just about starting a project—it’s a core analytical skill that builds critical thinking, reflection, and inquiry.
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When students generate their own driving questions, they learn how to balance feasibility with depth, tie inquiry to experiences in their everyday lives, and frame investigations that sustain curiosity. Even in team-based projects—where not every question will perfectly reflect each student’s life—the act of shaping the question gives every learner practice in higher-level thinking.
That’s exactly what I’m covering today—how the Driving Question Companion supports both students and teachers in generating strong driving questions through a structured, guided process.
Here’s what we’re going to talk about today:
How the Companion walks students step by step through crafting their own driving questions.
What this process looks like at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
How teachers can use their own version to align standards with student inquiry.
By the end, you’ll see how letting students build the driving question makes PBL easier to implement and more powerful in the classroom.
Weekly Resource List:
How to Write Effective Driving Questions for Project-Based Learning - Edutopia Understanding why driving questions serve both teacher and student, with practical examples of transforming boring questions into engaging ones.
How to Refine Driving Questions for Effective Project-Based Learning - Edutopia Three types of driving questions with before/after examples showing how to make questions culturally responsive and student-centered.
Solving Problems in Science: How the Driving Question Motivates Students in PBL Research-backed insights on how driving questions create focus while helping students understand "Why are we doing this?"
Developing the Questions for Project-Based Learning - Creative Educator Step-by-step process for moving from big ideas to essential questions to driving questions that hold student interest.
Crafting Questions That Drive Projects - Learning in Hand Practical strategies for connecting student interests to learning standards through compelling driving questions.
This newsletter is part of a series
This email is part of my ongoing PBL series, where I’m unpacking the building blocks of project-based learning. In my last newsletter, I explained why so many PBL efforts stall and how AI can simplify the process. Today, we’re zeroing in on one of the most critical—and most misunderstood—pieces: teaching students to create the driving question.
How it transforms learning at every level
The Driving Question Companion adapts to each developmental stage, guiding students to refine curiosities into focused investigations.
Elementary school: A 4th grader began with “Why should we eat healthy food?” and refined it into: “How does the digestive system use healthy foods to keep the body strong and working well?”. A broad curiosity turned into an age-appropriate science investigation tied to everyday life.
Middle school: A student with questions about money shaped their project into: “How can I split my money between saving and spending to meet both short-term wants and long-term goals?”. A personal dilemma became an academic exploration in economics.
High school: A teen fascinated by the microbiome crafted: “How can understanding the human microbiome help people make choices that keep their bodies healthy and balanced?”. Here, the Companion helped link a cutting-edge biology topic with practical, real-world application.
Teachers: One 5th grade teacher designing a Civil War project used the teacher version of the Companion to develop: “Why were Lincoln’s choices during the Civil War important for preserving the nation?”. This set up a project where students simulated Lincoln’s decision-making and explored “What If” scenarios—deepening historical reasoning and empathy.
Why driving questions matter so much
When students learn how to build driving questions themselves, they don’t just prepare for a single project—they build a transferable skill. A strong driving question sustains inquiry, encourages deeper engagement, and connects learning to life beyond the classroom.
The Driving Question Companion makes this process manageable by breaking it into twelve clear steps. Students identify interests, generate possibilities, test them against criteria, and refine until they have a question that can drive weeks of investigation.
For students, this means they aren’t just following someone else’s inquiry—they’re learning how to construct one of their own. For teachers, it means they can focus on content expertise and mentoring rather than carrying the burden of writing every project question.
Beyond one project
The value of this approach doesn’t end when the project does. By practicing how to craft strong questions, students strengthen their critical thinking and inquiry skills—tools they’ll carry into any subject, grade level, or future pursuit.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
In science, a student might move from “What are ecosystems?” to “How do changes in rainfall affect the balance of organisms in a local ecosystem?”
In social studies, instead of asking “What caused the American Revolution?” they might refine it into “How did differing perspectives on taxation shape both colonial unity and division?”
In math, students could shift from “How do we use percentages?” to “How can percentages help us compare savings plans and choose the best option?”
In language arts, a student might start with “What is a theme in this book?” and refine it into “How does the author use setting to show how characters’ values change over time?”
By teaching students how to construct questions like these, you’re not just preparing them for one project—you’re giving them a method of inquiry that applies everywhere.
For teachers, this means a more sustainable model for PBL. Instead of constantly inventing driving questions, you have a process that empowers students to do the heavy lifting of inquiry—while you focus on guiding, mentoring, and ensuring rigor.
AI Concept: Socratic Scaffolding
The Driving Question Companion doesn’t hand students answers. Instead, it uses a Socratic approach—asking one thoughtful question at a time, guiding students to reflect, refine, and build their own ideas.
For example:
An elementary student curious about food might first be asked, “Which body system do you think is most connected to the food we eat?”
A middle schooler wondering about money might be prompted with, “Do you want to focus more on saving for future goals or making smart spending choices now?”
At the high school level, the Companion might ask, “Do you want your project to explore how the microbiome supports overall health, or focus on specific systems like immunity and digestion?”
By breaking the process into manageable steps, the Companion reduces frustration while still keeping ownership in the student’s hands. They practice inquiry, decision-making, and analysis—skills far more valuable than being given a polished question upfront.
For teachers, this means less time spent scaffolding every individual student and more energy available to focus on content expertise, mentoring, and assessment.
Try this with your next project
If you’ve ever felt PBL was too complex, too time-consuming, or too dependent on the teacher doing all the heavy lifting, the Driving Question Companion changes that.
Start your next project by letting your students create the driving question. Have them copy the prompt from the attached Companion prompt document and use it to craft their project’s driving question. You’ll see ownership, engagement, and curiosity rise when the question guiding the work is theirs.
PS...If you're enjoying Master AI For Teaching Success, please consider referring this edition to a friend. They'll get access to our growing library of AI prompts and templates, plus our exclusive "Popular AI Tools Integration Guide For Teachers" implementation guide.