Asking better questions. The one thing that will make a session on questioning worthwhile for me personally is…

Asking better questions

The one thing that will make a session on questioning worthwhile for me personally is…

Asking better questions

How do you do it?

Why is it important?

Why can it be

difficult?

What are we talking about?

Map of the session

• Check in: introductions/aims and expectations, scene setting (paired/group activity)

• Issues with questioning (group activity/discussion)

• Asking better questions (video/input/discussion/practical activity)

• Physical challenge (paired activity)

• Asking questions better (walkabout activity/video/discussion)

• Check out (evaluation)

• Asking better questions that raise the challenge and require students to think

and

• Asking questions better to give students more support to help them to think and to reveal their understanding

What are we talking about?

Asking better questions

How do you do it?

Why is it important?

Why can it be

difficult?What are we talking

about?

“The most successful teachers all engage in above average levels of interaction with the students. This appears to be an important determinant of student progress.”

Maurice Galton and Brian Simon, ‘Progress and performance in the Primary Classroom’

Encouraging more interaction in the classroom

“You don’t know what you know until you say

it.” James aged 9

“Thought is closely related to language: talking is the prime vehicle for human thinking and learning. Not all thinking depends on words: conversations can be internal, but are particularly effective carried out in pairs or groups where different ways of interpreting evidence can be explored to mutual benefit.”

Lev Vygotsky ‘Thought and Language’ 1962

Learning depends on conversations

• You need to start from where your learners are: students will need to reconstruct or reconsider their existing knowledge, ideas and strategies, not just add to what they already know, understand or can do.

• Students must understand the learning intention, which includes what strategies they need to use to be successful as well as what constitutes a good quality end product.

• Students need to be active in the process: your job is to work with them so that the learning is done by them, you cannot do the learning for them or to them.

• Students need to be able to talk about their ideas in the whole class, in pairs or in groups.

• Feedback must focus on how students can improve not simply on how well they have done in relation to a target.

(adapted from Mathematics Inside the Black Box)

The five principles of AfL

Good questions can…

• reinforce previous learning

• assess knowledge

• develop thinking skills

• improve reasoning skills

• promote discussion

• demand explanation

• encourage creative thinking

• reveal understanding or misconceptions

• encourage debate

• give students confidence to express their opinions

• encourage problem solving

• reinforce and revisit learning intentions

• help identify success criteria

Asking better questions

How do you do it?

Why is it important?

Why can it be

difficult?What are we talking

about?

• What difficulties can there be for teachers in asking questions in the classroom?

• What can make it difficult for students to answer questions in class?

Issues with questioning

Difficulties for teachers in asking questions

• Creating a climate for quality questioning

• When no-one answers

• You may get side-tracked

• Some people answering all the time

• Pitching at a level where all children understand

Difficulties for students in answering questions

• don’t know the answer

• worried about ridicule

• don’t want to appear to know it all

• dominant students get to answer first

• fear of being put on the spot

• haven’t been paying attention

higher order thinkingdepends on…

high levels of interaction

safety to discuss

depends on…

respect for other people’s ideas

depends on…

Asking better questions

How do you do it?

Why is it important?

Why can it be

difficult?What are we talking

about?

How to ask better questions that raise the challenge and require students to think

How to ask better questions?

Strategies for teachers

Questioning Jigsaw

• Blooms taxonomy (reading 1:pp4/5) yellow

• Spot the difference (reading 2:pp6/7/8) pink

• Ideas for questioning (reading 3 p9) blue

• Using questions effectively (reading 4 p10)green

Questioning Jigsaw Stage1

• Read your page picking out the main points it is making you want to share with other people

• Focus at this point on what is being said not what you think of what is being said.

• Don’t use the yellow sticky to make notes – write on the handout underlining or making notes in the margin

Questioning jigsaw stage 2

• Share your main points with each other in the your colored group.

• Agree on the same three points that you will share about what the page is saying.

• Write these three points on the colored post-it.

Questioning Jigsaw Stage 3

• Get up, take your handout and your coloured post-it with you and form ‘rainbow groups’ of four with one person with each of four colours on post-it in the group

• Take turns to talk about what the reading your group focused on using the three main points on your coloured sticky to help you.

• Then venture any opinions that you and/or your group had about the information in your reading

Cut back on ‘guess-what I am thinking’ Reproductive Questions

Teacher: Remember that big word we used last time to describe how plants make food…..it begins with a ‘p’?.............photo………? photosssss…..?

Student:Photosynthesis!!!!

Teacher:Well done, James!!!

• What do you think?

• Why do you think that?

• How do you know?

• Do you have a reason?

• Can you be sure?

• Is there another way?

• What do you think happens next?

Keep some general ‘hot’ questions in your desk drawer

Use probing questions to search for more information

Probes are precise questions designed to unpick a student’s train of thought and encourage them to explore it more deeply.

•Can you explain what you mean by….?

•Can you show me what you mean by…?

•Can you tell me more about….?

•Are you sure?

•Why do you think that?

•Are you saying that….?

•What is the evidence for that?

•How do you know?

•How did you work that out?

•Can you give an example of….?

•Can you explain why….?

Use prompting questions to give hints

These give hints or suggestions about what strategies students might try to solve a problem or come up with an answer for themselves.

•Would…help?

•You could try…

•Have you compared your idea with…?

•What about…?

•Why not…?

•Have you tried…?

Plan fewer and better subject specific questions in advance

• Plan only a few key questions.

• Decide on the level, order and timing of questions.

• Consider embedding key questions at the start of a lesson, or

• Structure and sequence questions from easy to more difficult.

• Have some standard follow-up questions to prompt and probe.

Start with simple questions and progress to more challenging ones

• Remembering: can take in information and recall it when needed

• Understanding: can give basic meaning to information

• Applying: can use a learned skill in a new situation

• Analyzing: can break information into parts and relate it to the whole

• Creating: can combine existing elements to create something new

• Evaluating: can make an objective judgement about the value of something based on a recognized standard

Five key strategies to ask better subject specific questions

1. Provide a range of answers.

2. Turn the question into a true or false statement .

3. Don’t ask the question – give the answer and ask why it is correct.

4. Don’t focus on the answer, focus on how to work it out.

5. Ask questions that explore opposites, differences, categories and exceptions .

1. Provide a range of answers

This involves asking a question and give a range of possible answers which include definite yes answers, definite no answers and some ambiguous answers.

1. Provide a range of answers

What can we do to preserve the ozone layer?

1. Reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by cars and factories

2. Reduce the greenhouse effect

3. Stop the cutting down on forests

4. Limit the number of cars that can be used when the ozone level gets high

5. Properly dispose of air-conditioners and fridges

The correct answer is 5- because it is a question about the ozone layer not global warming.

Dylan Wiliam (2006)

1. Provide a range of answers

What do we need for life?

• water, telephones, clothing, cars, shelter, food

Which of these are alive and which are dead?

• trees, clouds, cats, water, snakes, grass

2. Turn the question into a true or false statement

Agree or disagree?...

• no food is unhealthy

• this picture shows a Viking

• money brings you happiness

• multiples of 3 are always odd numbers

• drugs in sport are morally wrong

• the moon is a source of light

• shylock was a victim not a villain

3. Don’t ask the question – give the answer and ask why it’s correct

Instead of asking…

1. Is 7 a prime number?’

2. Is this a complex sentence?

3. Can 7/9 be simplified?

4. What kind of film is “Star Wars”?

Ask…1. Why is 7 a prime number?’

2. Why is this a complex sentence?

3. Why can 7/9 not be simplified?

4. Why is “Star Wars” a science fiction film?

4. Don’t focus on the answer, focus on how to work the answer out

Instead of…

1. What is 2/3rds of 24?

2. What is friendship?

3. Were the Germans responsible for the first World War?

Ask…

1. How would you find 2/3rds of 24?

2. How do you know that someone is your friend?

3. What questions would you have to ask yourself to decide if the Germans were responsible for the first World War?

5. Ask questions that explore opposites, differences, categories and exceptions

Original question…1. What do we need to

make circuits work?

2. What makes a good story opening?

3. Should young people always obey their parents?

4. What is a mammal?

Revised question…1. Why does this circuit work and

this one does not?

2. Which of these two openings makes you want to read on?

3. When would it be right for young people not to obey their parents?

4. What is the same and what is different about mammals and birds?

More questions that cause and reveal thinking in maths

• How did you decide this was the right answer?

• Which of these calculations are right and which are wrong?

• Why do these mistakes happen?

• How can we avoid them?• How could you make that

question harder or easier?

• Topic of insects

• Already done some work on insects

• Want to check/extend current knowledge/understanding

• Want to make links to other areas of the curriculum

• What is an insect?

• A camel is not an insect. Why not?

• Is a bird an insect?

• What sort of things does an insect have on it’s head?

• What do you think it’s like to be an insect?

• Did you know that a butterfly tastes with it’s feet? Can you imagine what it would be like if we tasted with our feet?

What if we could fly?

good points bad points interestingpoints

Talk to students about different kinds of questions

• You might use the terms “fat” and “thin” questions or “hot” and “cold” questions.

• “Hot” questions or “higher order thinking” questions are questions that make you think and help you to think.

• And thinking helps you to understand and get smarter.

• I’m going to ask you some hot questions today and give you more time to answer them.

How to ask questions better to give students more support to help them to think and to reveal their understanding

How to ask better questions

1. Wait time

2. No hands up

3. Think, pair and share

4. Show-me boards

5. Signals for understanding

6. Take the answer round the class

7. Minimal encouragers

Asking questions better

Leave “wait” or “think” time

• More students are likely to offer an answer.

• The frequency of answers from less able students rises.

• Students give longer answers.

• Responses are usually more thoughtful or creative.

• More students ask questions.

Two kinds of wait time

• teacher asks a question

• student responds

• teacher reacts to the student’s response

No hands up

• Can be a good idea when wait time doesn’t work• Can be informal: “Talk to your partner about it for a

minute.”’• Can be formal: “Let’s think, pair and share that

now.”• Snap your fingers and they know they must write

down their thought in complete silence for a minute.• Snap again and it’s pairing with partner voices, then

you can pick on any individual to share an idea with the whole class.

Think, pair and share

Signals for understanding

1. traffic lights

2. thumbs

3. show-me-boards

• This is about playing volleyball rather than ping-pong

• Works best with open questions but can also work with closed

• When a student answers your question, leave it on the other side of the net and find what a few others think before you respond.

Take the answer round the class

These suggest: “Please continue. I’m listening and I understand.”

For example….

“Mm-hmm” “Tell me more” “Oh?”

“For instance?” “I see” “Right”

“Then?” “Yes really?” “And?”

“Go on” “So?” “I hear you” “Sure?”

“What would you say if you did know?”

Respond with ‘minimal encouragers’

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