Introduction to the developing effective questioning Routemap
This routemap provides a range of resources to help you use research and evidence to develop
practice. Each station connects to teacher friendly summaries and resources about questioning.
Resources on the Routemap
Bites are short and engaging PowerPoints that only take a matter of minutes to read. You may wish
to read these on your own to quickly gain information about important evidence. Alternatively they
can be viewed collaboratively in a staff meeting or Inset session. The questions included in the
implications slides are designed to support collaborative exploration of practice.
The practitioner friendly summaries of research highlight important evidence on a subject and
include implications for classroom and leadership practice. You might want to discuss the evidence
with colleagues and consider how this could be applied in your context.
Tasters are designed to help you explore your pupils’ starting points and learning experiences as a
springboard for informed action planning. They contain a ‘nugget’ of research evidence and practical
suggestions for gathering manageable, interesting and useful evidence in your work with pupils.
Although many of these can be used individually you will find them more useful and engaging if you
work in pairs or small groups to compare notes about your pupils’ learning and support each other in
planning next steps.
These summaries of teachers’ own research give a detailed picture of how teachers developed
practice and how this improved their pupils’ learning. You might want to discuss with colleagues
how you could adapt the strategies with your own pupils and how you will gain evidence of the
impact. The summaries might also inspire you to carry out your own research.
Summaries of longer research reports highlight the key evidence on a subject and detail examples of
practice with pupils. Implications questions support collaborative exploration of the key issues.
The Ladygrove Park case study stations provide blank PowerPoint slides you can populate with your
own examples of practice.
This resource was created by CUREE.
For further practitioner friendly resources, visit www.curee.co.uk
Common Questions
Q.
We have had several meetings with staff where everybody has agreed how they will develop
teaching strategies. Unfortunately, lesson observations show that the strategies aren’t
happening yet, what should we do?
A.
There are lots of complex variables involved in changing learning practices to take account of
evidence from research or policy changes. Understanding something cognitively is different
from embedding it in daily teaching and learning experiences. This involves trying things out
and observing how pupils respond on a sustained basis. Research tells us that the support of
others is crucial for this.
You should find that bites and practitioner friendly summaries and the questions they
contain offer rich material for supporting in-depth discussion in, for example, staff or phase
meetings. The tasters then offer micro enquiry tools that pairs or triads of colleagues can
use to support each other as they try out new approaches.
Q.
After reading a bite some staff said that they already knew about that teaching strategy,
what should I do?
A.
Research in education builds knowledge cumulatively so most new research contains
familiar elements. It is therefore likely that some teachers may well be familiar with some
issues highlighted. The point about engaging and re-engaging with large-scale research
evidence is to help us think about how well we are using different strategies and what we
can do to ensure we realise their full potential. This might include using research findings to
identify and celebrate practices, for which there is a strong evidence base – to remind us to
keep on it up! But often large scale research evidence helps us recognize that although we
use certain strategies already, there is room for improvement in how we use them. In
particular it helps us think about why approaches do and don’t work in different situations.
It can be helpful to alert staff to evidence about existing school practices from the start and
to provide opportunities to reflect on the extent and depth to which they are used –
especially through the eyes of pupils. You might like to point out to staff too, that although
80% of teachers across England use Assessment for Learning techniques, so far, only about
20% of teachers use them to their full potential1.
Q.
My colleagues were interested in the research but don’t think the teaching strategies will
work in their subject area or with the age group they teach. What should I do?
1
See Learning How to Learn through AfL Strategies, available at http://www.tla.ac.uk/site/Pages/RfT.aspx
This resource was created by CUREE.
For further practitioner friendly resources, visit www.curee.co.uk
A.
The evidence on this routemap is taken from a strong evidence base about key strategies
which are important for teaching and learning in lots of contexts. So even though it doesn’t
illustrate use in every subject as an age group you can have confidence that they are likely to
work. But it is also true that different strategies feel more, and less challenging in difficult
subject areas. When we teach science, for example, we often feel that the risk of
misconceptions makes it difficult to challenge all pupils. By contrast, when we are confident
in our maths teaching, we see misconceptions are really valuable indications of learning and
can help everyone in a class get to grips with underpinning principles. So it may well be
helpful to have colleagues work in pairs or triads on a range of contexts so that they can use
and refine strategies for different subject area and pupils in the context of a range of
perspectives and possibilities. The examples from practitioner-research summaries may act
as a catalyst for cross department discussion.
Q.
Like my staff I want the school’s practice to be up to date. Some of the resources here are
quite old – why should we bother using them?
A.
We have selected resources that speak very directly to your school and context. All of the
approaches are consistent with the latest research findings – but sometimes the most
relevant and telling illustrations were carried out by teachers and/or researchers some time
ago. Our priority has been to find the best and closest fit with your school’s aims – that is
also consistent with up to date findings.
This resource was created by CUREE.
For further practitioner friendly resources, visit www.curee.co.uk