Questioning Techniques
Sandy Macut
SC High School Principal
Today’s Essential Questions
 How do students
 If students don’t
 How can teachers
 How can I get my
benefit when
questioning is used
as an instructional
strategy?
improve the use of
questioning
strategies?
like answering
questions why
should we ask
them?
students to answer
questions without
violating the
Geneva
Convention?
Why do you ask questions?
 47% managerial
 43% informational
 10% higher-order
National Educational Service
Questioning
Teacher provides focused feedback and
questions to students that :
 Activate prior knowledge
 Probe students’ conceptual understanding
 Lead to deeper understanding
Progressing from simple
questions to more difficult ones
that require reasoning helps
students develop cognitive
abilities and critical thinking
skills.
(Kappa Delta Pi, Fall 2005)
Why Questioning Matters
 Instruction which includes posing questions during
lessons is more effective in producing achievement gains
than instruction carried out without questioning
students.
 Oral questions posed during classroom recitations are
more effective in fostering learning than are written
questions.
 Questions which focus student attention on the most
important points of the lesson result in better
comprehension than questions which do not.
 Questioning makes student thinking visible and provides
immediate feedback to the teacher.
What Are Good Questions?
 They help students make sense of the content/topic.
 They are open-ended, whether in answer or approach. There
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may be multiple answers or multiple approaches.
They empower students to unravel their misconceptions.
They not only require the application of facts and
procedures but encourage students to make connections
and generalizations.
They are accessible to all students in their language and
offer an entry point for all students.
Their answers lead students to wonder more about a
topic and to perhaps construct new questions themselves as
they investigate this newly found interest.
Question their
background knowledge first!
 Guide students from the known to the unknown
 Use cues, questions, and organizers to set the stage for
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learning
Before new knowledge can be incorporated into
student’s existing schema, the schema must be
activated
Start by asking what students already know
Focus on content that is most important, not on what
students will find most interesting (hopefully you can
make important content interesting!)
You can discover and clear up misconceptions by
taking time to ask questions before you begin a unit of
study!
BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY
Creating
Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things
Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing.
Evaluating
Justifying a decision or course of action
Checking, hypothesising, critiquing, experimenting, judging
Analysing
Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships
Comparing, organizing, deconstructing, interrogating, finding
Applying
Using information in another familiar situation
Implementing, carrying out, using, executing
Understanding
Explaining ideas or concepts
Interpreting, summarizing, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining
Remembering
Recalling information
Recognising, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding
Webb’s Depth of Knowledge are:
DOK
Webb's Depth of Knowledge
Depth of Knowledge is the degree of depth or complexity of knowledge standards
and assessments require; this criterion is met if the assessment is as demanding
cognitively as the expectations standards are set for students.
DOK is NOT.....about Verbs - Verbs are not always used appropriately.
about "difficulty" - It is not about the student or level of difficulty for the student - it
requires looking at the assessment item not student work in order to determine the
level. DOK is about the item/standard - not the student.
DOK is....about what FOLLOWS the verb. What comes after the verb is more
important than the verb itself. It is about the complexity of mental processing that
must occur to answer a question.
Remember DOK...Descriptive, not a taxonomy
Focuses on how deeply the student has to know the content in order to respond.
Not the same as difficulty.
Handouts
 Hess’ Cognitive Rigor Matrix & Curricular
Examples: Applying Webb’s Depth-of-Knowledge
Levels to Bloom’s Cognitive Process Dimensions –
Reading
 Hess’ Cognitive Rigor Matrix & Curricular
Examples: Applying Webb’s Depth-of-Knowledge
Levels to Bloom’s Cognitive Process Dimensions Writing
Wait-time
 Average wait time teachers allow after posing a
question is one second or less
 Students whom teachers perceive as slow or poor
learners are given less wait-time than students
teachers perceive as more capable
 For lower cognitive questions successful wait
time is 3 seconds
 For higher cognitive questions the more wait
time teachers give, the more engaged students
become and the better they perform
For students, 3+ seconds wait time :
 Improves achievement
 Improves retention
 Increases number of higher cognitive responses
 Increases length of responses
 Increases number of unsolicited responses
 Decreases failure to respond
 Increases amount of quality evidence used to support
inferences
 Expands variety of responses
 Increases student-to-student interactions
 Increases number of questions posed by students
And for teachers, 3+ second wait time:
 Increases flexibility of teacher responses (teachers
listen more and engage students in more
discussions)
 Increases expectations for students usually perceived
as slow
 Expands the variety of questions asked
 Increases number of higher cognitive questions
asked
Research by the Department of Labor
says students spend…
 22% reading and writing
 23% speaking
 55% listening
A question is useless if you do not
LISTEN carefully to the response. IT IS
WHAT YOU DO WITH THE RESPONSE
THAT COUNTS!
Effective Questioning
To be an effective questioner, it
is better to use the student’s
response to guide your next
question than to use your
question to guide the
student’s response.
How to respond to student answers:
 Use student responses to form your next question
and narrow the focus of the discussion
 Probing questions help you know how deeply the
student is thinking
 Teacher redirection and probing help student
achievement when they focus on clarity, accuracy,
plausibility of student responses.
How do students feel about questions?
 Generally they fear them, which stops learning
 We usually only ask a 2nd question when the first
response was wrong = students have an aversion to
the 2nd question
 If redirection/probing are vague or critical
(“That’s not right; try again”; “Where did you get
an idea like that?”) students may not continue to
respond and achievement does not improve.
Your response to their answers will determine
whether or not they continue to answer!
 Acknowledge correct responses
 Listen carefully to student responses!
 Praise of student responses should be sincere and
credible and should be used sparingly.
 Establish community where all answers are
accepted as a gift – model this for your students
Teach students how to state their
opinions – civic discourse
 I think, I feel, I believe . . .
 Support with reasons, facts, details
 Use reasonable tone of voice – good
manners
Don’t Forget:
 Ask questions that focus on most important elements of
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the lesson
Ask questions before and after material is read and
studied
Scaffold lower ability students: ask lower cognitive
questions, gradually transitioning to higher cognitive
questions. Ensure student success during questioning
experiences.
Teach students strategies for making inferences.
3 seconds for lower cognitive questions
More than 3 seconds for higher cognitive questions
Allow generous wait time for lower ability students
Self-reflection
Review today’s essential questions:
 How do students benefit when
questioning is used as an
instructional strategy?
 How can teachers improve the use
of questioning strategies?
Classroom Questioning Article
“School Improvement Series” Close-up #5 by
Kathleen Cotton
http://educationnorthwest.org/webfm_send/569