Does ChatGPT Teach Students to Ask Better Questions?
...and who is training whom?
Mom taught me how to ask great questions. My favourite question is, “What’s the most surprising thing you learned?” Why? Because it prompts a unique, unscripted answer, and I usually learn something new - as does the person I am speaking with.
ChatGPT may help students learn to ask better questions, moving them up along Bloom’s Taxonomy.
I first met Michael around 2016 at Branksome Hall, where he was the head of IT and then Innovation. I was a parent, on the Board, and involved in fundraising. I would periodically get to hear him speak about changes in technology and how they might impact the school. I almost always walked away thinking either “well, that will make us more efficient, or secure,” and sometimes even “holy crap, that really might change the world.”
Bloom’s Taxonomy is an academic classification system used since the 1950s to distinguish different levels of human cognition. It starts at Remember and moves up to Create. My thanks to my friend and colleague, Dr. Michael DiGregorio () for introducing me to this framework when we were both at Top Hat.
The Shape of Tomorrow podcast references a Nature meta-analysis of 51 research studies published between Nov 2022 and 2025. That analysis concluded that ChatGPT has a large positive impact on improving learning performance (g = 0.867), and a moderately positive impact on enhancing learning perception (g = 0.456) and fostering higher-order thinking (g = 0.457). Higher-order thinking includes the Analyze, Evaluate, and Create levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The paper also indicated that learners did not just produce better answers, they asked better questions. Confidence in asking insightful questions rose from 61% to 89% after engaging consistently with ChatGPT.
Anyone who has used ChatGPT can tell you that asking better questions (ie “prompt engineering”) will produce materially better results. As one example, check out the flawed image I got when I asked ChatGPT to display Bloom’s Taxonomy in the standard academic pyramid format. Not “quite” right.
Michael Ianni-Palarchio says that AI “is about engagement, confidence, and the pace at which learners absorb and apply concepts.” He points out that classes that use AI for support (clarifying questions, personalized explanations, feedback on their learning), rather than simply to generate answers, delivered improvements in learning. The key was to use the technology consistently for 4-8 weeks. At that point students began to treat AI as an integrated part of their learning process.
“…skill development is more efficient when AI adapts to the learner’s pace and context…ChatGPT can help develop higher order thinking, those upper tiers of Bloom’s Taxonomy.”
- Michael Ianni-Palarchio, Shape of Tomorrow podcast May 2025
Other articles, such as Your Brain on AI, published in yesterday’s Globe and Mail, conclude that AI can dull critical thinking skills. That article posits that AI users assume AI is competent for simple tasks. This overestimates AI capabilities and can lead to overreliance on the technology. Users tend to rely on AI for low-stakes tasks and engage their own critical thinking for higher-stakes tasks. Since higher-stakes tasks occur more infrequently, this can lead to atrophy of critical thinking skills over time.
This debate occurs, and rightly so, with most new technologies that enter the classroom. Take calculators, the internet, social media, or classroom engagement technologies such as Top Hat. Educators debated the merits of these, and eventually ran pilots or low-stakes implementations. They learned from these pilots, and eventually the technology became oft-used in the classroom, usually with guardrails.
There are ways forward in this debate, such as using AI as temporary support (“scaffolding”) to demonstrate the steps in solving basic problems in a new, unfamiliar area. Or, to test one’s thinking:
“…one positive way to engage with AI is to treat chatbots like intellectual sparring partners – push for evidence, ask for alternative views, look for logical gaps. That puts humans in control, rather than passively accepting answers.”
- Michael Gerlich, Swiss Business School Professor
I’ve been in technology for 40 years. This pattern of “debate, pilot, deploy, then wonder how we ever did without it” repeats with all technologies that fundamentally change the way we live and work. Thoughtful implementation of ChatGPT will help learners ask better questions and accelerate their own learning.
Heather, thank you for the kind mention. I am truly humbled. What resonated most in your piece was how you combined personal experience with thoughtful insights on learning and technology. Your favorite question, “What’s the most surprising thing you learned?” is such a strong example of how the right prompt can spark deeper thinking and engagement. I really appreciate how you’re highlighting not just the role of AI in the classroom, but the importance of using it with purpose and intention. A terrific and meaningful read.