1 ‘In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. The important thing is not to stop questioning.’ Albert Einstein

Effective Questioning & Dialogue

3 It’s a fact that…  An average teacher asks 400 questions in a day  That’s 70,000 a year!  One-third of all teaching time is spent asking questions  Most questions are answered in less than a second Steven Hastings TES 4 July 2003

Over 1,000, seconds 4.1/3 of lessons 5.84% of lessons 6.Over 90% seconds seconds 9.62% of questions 10.15% of pupils All the following answers relate to questioning. Can you work out the questions?

Learning Aims: To be able to frame questions, deliver them, and respond to the answers in ways that maximise engagement and learning.

To interest, engage and challenge pupils. To check on prior knowledge and make connections between previous and new learning. To focus learning on new ideas and concepts. To extend pupils’ thinking from the concrete to the analytical and evaluative. The promote pupils’ thinking about the way they have learned (metacognition). Why do we ask questions?

What is a good question?

Questions One where we are clear as to why we have asked it and know one where we know how to react to the responses we get to it...”

9 What is ineffective questioning?  Asking too many closed questions  Yes or no questions  Short answer recall-based questions  Hands up questioning Questions that are inappropriate for the material Questions that have an unconscious gender bias Questions that have an unconscious bias towards most able or more demanding students Questions targeted to different abilities inappropriately Those that don’t have enough thinking time Questions where learners don’t have any idea as to whether they are the only ones to get it wrong/right Where learners fear being seen by their peers to be wrong Questions that are too difficult or too easy

TOP TIP: Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce The teacher poses a question, pauses to allow pupils time to think, pounces on any pupil (keeps them on their toes) and then bounces the pupil’s response onto another pupil.  E.g.  T: How might you describe a hexagon? P: It’s a shape with 6 sides T: (to second pupil) How far do you agree with that answer?  Depending on the answer of the second pupil – the line of questioning could continue –  Is the first answer completely right? How could we improve the question? How could we make the answer accurate? /05/ofsted-2012-questioning-to-promote- learning

Fishing & Shooting! The most basic definition between questions is open and closed. Closed questions have a single correct answer eg yes/no, a date a name. Control of the conversation is with the questioner. They can feel safe and keep the lesson moving. What is…? Name…? Can you remember…? When are these useful? Open questions have no single correct answer, many possibilities, are sometimes a matter of opinion or interpretation. More often than not, these lean towards high order thinking. Explain why/ how... What do you think..? How do these compare? Why is... important? When are these useful?

In pairs Give me 2 open and 2 closed questions

Task - 3 minutes Draw each other's houses! You can only ask closed questions!

Task – 3 minutes Draw each other's houses! Open questions only!

Task Draw each other's houses! B= mixture of open and closed.

Write down 3 closed questions for a topic you’ll teach this week.

Funnelling Closed Explain Explore (opinion)  What is 42 x 4..?  Baseline  How did you work it out..?  Checks understanding  Could you have done it any other way..?  Stretches and challenges

Funnelling Closed Explain Explore (opinion)  Who became King in 1066…?  How did he become king…?  Do you think it was fair…?

Turn one of your closed questions into an open question using funnelling.

Evaluation Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things. Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing Synthesis Justifying a decision or course of action. Checking, hypothesising, critiquing, experimenting, judging Analysis Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships. Comparing, organising, deconstructing, interrogating, finding Application Using information in another familiar situation. Implementing, carrying out, using, executing Comprehension Explaining ideas or concepts. Interpreting, summarising, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining Knowledge Recalling information. Recognising, listing, describing, retrieving, naming. QUESTIONING FOR LEARNING: BLOOM’S TAXONOMY High Order

Which parts could not be true? Why did Goldilocks like little bear’s bed best? Was Goldilocks good or bad? Why? What happened in the story? Can you think of a different ending? What would have happened if Goldilocks had come to your house? BLOOMING QUESTIONS KNOWLEDGE COMPREHENSION APPLICATION ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS EVALUATION

Which parts could not be true? Why did Goldilocks like little bear’s bed best? Was Goldilocks good or bad? Why? What happened in the story? Can you think of a different ending? What would have happened if Goldilocks had come to your house? BLOOMING QUESTIONS KNOWLEDGE What happened in the story? COMPREHENSION Why did Goldilocks like the little bears bed best? APPLICATION What would have happened if Goldilocks had come to your house? ANALYSIS Which parts could not be true? SYNTHESIS Can you think of a different ending? EVALUATION Was Goldilocks good or bad and why?

Pick a topic that you will be teaching this week and plan your questions using the Bloom’s Planning Kit. More ‘Blooming’ Questions!

Maximising Engagement How can we make sure that all pupils answer questions? Mind map your ideas as a group and I’ll ask for one person (at random) to feedback.

Ideas:  Post-it notes  Paper on table- all write round ‘rally robin’  No hands up policy  Random name generator  Random picture generator  Kagan structures, rally robin, think-pair-share  Postcards  Seating plan- use for targeted questions  Using register to answer questions  Corners- ABCD  RAG cards in planner  Mini whiteboards  Lollipop sticks  Raffle tickets  Basketballing

How can we keep pupils talking? INCLUDE WAIT TIME When teachers increase the average wait time to 3 seconds; The length of explanations amongst advantaged groups increases fivefold, and amongst disadvantaged groups sevenfold Failures to respond decreases from 30% to less than 5% The number of questions asked by children rises... Rowe (1986); University of Florida

Minimal Encouragers Keeps students talking. USE brief responses that show that you are there, listening. They involve saying very little and offer minimal direction. ‘Go on...’ ‘Tell me more about...’ ‘Why do you say that?’ ‘mmm...’ Raising eyebrows/ indicating to go on with hands... What do you do?

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  E.g. Choose the best description of a rhombus.  a. a 2D shape with two pairs of parallel sides b. a quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides, each side being of equal length c. a quadrilateral where all four sides have equal length. Opposite sides are parallel and opposite angles are equal. d. a quadrilateral where all four sides have equal length. Opposite sides are parallel and all angles are right angles.  Whatever the response, it offers an opportunity for probing and further discussion.

Dilemmas and discussion  Asking questions which stimulate discussion are a great way to promote learning.  Crooks is just a bitter, twisted man. Discuss.  There is a boat about to sink. You can only save 2 people. Who would you choose from the following: child, teacher, doctor, mother, leader, teenager or a survival expert?

Implications Plan to ask questions Plan the questions you will ask Look for progression in questioning, in understanding, and in thinking

Hands down: teacher selects pupil(s) to answer Wait time: all pupils have the opportunity to think before answering Pupils encouraged to consult in their group/with a partner in order to formulate an answer Teacher involves a number of pupils in the answer to a single question, creating the opportunity for discussion, eg “What do you think?” “Do you agree with that answer?” Use of wrong answers to develop understanding Appropriateness of questions; fit for purpose Quality of questions – good question stems, eg “Why does…?” “What if…?” “How would you..?” “Could you explain….? Opportunities for pupils to formulate questions Personalised Questioning to support your lessons AFL

Extend thinking time after you have asked a question and after a first response Adopt a rule of ‘No hands up’ Avoid the temptation to prompt, provide the answer or move on to someone else Ask questions randomly and return to the same pupils on two or three occasions If pupils cannot answer a question, leave it with them and say you will come back to them after they have thought about it. Don’t forget to go back! Ask pupils to work in pairs on your questions (KAGAN) – discussion encourages collaboration and clarification of thought Personalised Questioning Tips for asking questions

34 Tips  Plan for questioning  Wait for an answer – use think/pair, share sessions  Ask open questions  Use questions to develop collaborative work  Know the answer to your questions  Start a lesson with a question  Review the questions in the plenary session

Reflection  How 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 don’t 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?

Final Thought… “Not all of our questions are answered...” “...but all of our answers are questioned”

37 Teaching is the art of asking questions. Socrates Good learning starts with questions, not answers. Guy Claxton, Bristol University