How many grains of sand are there in this beach?

Can you ever step on the same beach twice? Does 1 + 1 always equal 2? If Hitler was the answer what was the question?

Effective Questioning

What is the purpose of Questioning?

5 minutes On post it notes

What is the purpose of Questioning?

To review and summarise previous learning. To motivate students to become actively involved in lessons. To assess students' preparation and check on homework or classwork completion and understanding. To assess achievement of lesson To develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes.

To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own.

Questioning students enables the whole class to hear different explanations from other students.

Asking questions helps teachers pace their lessons and moderate student behaviour.

How is effective is your questioning?

Do you ever consciously audit your questions? How good are the key questions you plan for each lesson?

How well do the questions you ask relate to the learning objectives?
Do the questions you ask challenge thinking? How often do you ask further questions that really probe understanding? How many questions do you ask to which you dont know the answer? How often do the learners ask the questions How often do you ask the learners to generate probing questions? How do the questions you ask promote learning?

Ofsted Criteria
Outstanding
The teacher systematically and effectively checks pupils understanding throughout the lesson, anticipating where they may need to intervene and doing so with striking impact on the quality of learning. Good The teacher listens to, observes and questions groups of pupils during lessons in order to reshape tasks and explanations to improve learning

Teachers and adults assess pupils progress accurately and are alert to pupils lack of understanding during the lesson so that they can move swiftly to correct the misunderstanding.

Teachers and adults assess some of the pupils progress during the lesson and move to correct the misunderstanding.

Research shows that:

There is a positive correlation between teachers asking higher level cognitive questions and the achievement of their students. Training teachers to build in thinking time after questions are asked is also positively related to student achievement Varying questioning techniques and styles and using techniques other than questioning during classroom discussions (e.g. silence, making statements) are the most effective way to raise student achievement.

Two Questions
Do we need to consciously teach students to ask good questions and not just answer them?

We want our students to be independent learners but do we model and teach them that independence in our lessons?

At the start of the lesson:

1. Key Questions as Learning Objectives:
By asking a big question you can initiate thinking and group discussion that immediately engages students in their prospective learning. By framing it as a question, it can raise motivation, as students feel like they have invested choice in their learning.

2. If this is the answerwhat is the question?:

It could be a relatively closed answer, like 3.14159265359, or something more open and abstract, like religion.

3. Thunks:
Initiate deeper thinking, with seemingly simple questions opening up a complex array of higher order thinking. Thunks, such as: If I ask if I can steal your pen and you say yes, is that stealing? Or Can I ever step on the same beach twice? are great fun and thoughtful starters. http://www.thunks.co.uk

During the lesson:

4. Socratic questioning and Socratic Circles: Socrates himself believed that questioning was at the root of all learning. The six steps of Socratic questioning creates a critical atmosphere that probes thinking and gets the students questioning in a structured way. There are six main categories:
Q1. Get your students to clarify their thinking, for instance: Why do you say that? .Could you explain that further? Q2. Challenging students about assumptions, for instance: Is this always the case? Why do you think that this assumption holds here? Q3. Evidence as a basis for argument, questions such as: Why do you say that? or Is there reason to doubt this evidence? Q4. Viewpoints and perspectives, this challenges the students to investigate other ways of looking at the same issue, for example: What is the counter argument for? or Can/did anyone see this another way? Q5. Implications and consequences, given that actions have consequences, this is an area ripe for questioning, for instance: But if that happened, what else would result? or How does affect .? By investigating this, students may analyse more carefully before jumping to an opinion Q6. Question the question, just when students think they have a valid answer this is where you can tip them back into the pit: Why do you think I asked that question? or Why was that question important?

P and H

5. POSE PAUSE POUNCE BOUNCE?

This is a simple but very important strategy. The thinking time at the pause point is crucial there is a great deal of evidence about how the quality of responses, and the confidence levels of students, is raised by even a short amount of thinking time. The bounce is also crucial in that, once again, students are expected to constructively build upon the ideas of one another, which gives the teacher the crucial formative assessment information required. Dylan Williams

6. Hinge questions
A hinge question is based on the important concept in a lesson that is critical for students to understand before you move on in the lesson. The question should fall about midway during the lesson. Every student must respond to the question within two minutes. You must be able to collect and interpret the responses from all students in 30 seconds

English

Which of these is correct? A. Its on its way. B. Its on its way. C. Its on its way. D. Its on its way.

Maths In which of these right-angled triangles is a2 + b2 = c2 ?

A a C b

b c
a c a b

B a D b F c

c b c
a b a

Spanish Which of the following is the correct translation for I give the book to him? A. Yo lo doy el libro. B. Yo doy le el libro. C. Yo le doy el libro. D. Yo doy lo el libro. E. Yo doy el libro le. F. Yo doy el libro lo.

E c

Later in the lesson:

7) Question continuum
The continuum involves the students first devising questions, in pairs or groups, on any given topic or idea.
Then the continuum is created very visibly, either on the whiteboard or on a display board. The horizontal axis would represent the Interest Level generated by each question that is how likely the question is to inspire new thinking and new possibilities, and simply the interest level it generates from the group. Then the vertical axis could represent Complexity (from closed factual questions to open, conceptual questions) Students feedback their opinions, shaped by the teacher, to identify the best questions, which then could be the subject of further exploration.

8) Questioning monitor:
This technique constructively involves students in the evaluation and reflection of the questioning process fostering my now well worn refrain of creating a culture of enquiry. A monitor, or a pair of monitors, would be given the responsibility to track and monitor the frequency of questions: teacher and student open or closed: factual or conceptual. You can have them monitor for a given task, or relate more cumulative research by undertaking the monitoring over a week or two of lessons. By exploring the evidence you are signalling to the students that you value evidence, and you are diagnosing the quality of your questioning, and that of the students. You will then have the evidence to know whether you really do have a culture of enquiry and if not, it illuminates some of the steps you need to take to develop one.

The activity sends very powerful messages to students about how highly your value quality questioning.

For each Technique:

Will you be able to use it in your lesson? If so, how can you adapt and apply it to your subject? Will it help you answer in the affirmative to.

these questions? Do you ever consciously audit your questions? How good are the key questions you plan for each lesson?

How well do the questions you ask relate to the learning objectives?
Do the questions you ask challenge thinking? How often do you ask further questions that really probe understanding? How many questions do you ask to which you dont know the answer? How often do the learners ask the questions How often do you ask the learners to generate probing questions? How do the questions you ask promote learning?

Thank you