Asking questions and appreciating inquiry: a winning strategy for the nurse educator and professional nurse learner.

This article explores "asking questions" as an effective teaching-learning strategy and endorses a culture that facilitates asking questions to promote ethical and clinical reasoning to keep patients safe and improve care. Nurse educators who appreciate the use of empowering, thoughtful questions in provocative ways can encourage learners to become astute thinkers and innovative problem solvers. Asking questions teaches learners to argue their thoughts, ideas, and decisions persuasively and ultimately to realize that is it not the right answer that counts as much as asking the right question.