Asking the right questions to stimulate students’ minds.

 The purpose of this training is to provide participating teachers with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to effectively use questioning techniques to improve instruction in the classroom.

 In today’s training session you will:  Understand types of questions and their uses in both reading and math.  Discover ways to both ask questions and give feedback in a way to maximize learning potential in many classroom situations.  Design a plan to incorporate and improve questioning within the overall afterschool session.

 Read the passage given to you. Create 5 questions to accurately assess your typical afterschool student’s mastery of the passage.

 Right There: These refer to questions that are explicitly identified in the text.  Think and Search: The answers to these questions are in the text, but are composed of multiple parts spread out over multiple areas.  Author and Me: These answers are not explicit in the text. Readers must combine what they know already with the author’s message to create an answer.  On My Own: These answers are not in the text, and may not require the text to be answered. Readers must use their own knowledge and experiences to answer these questions (Raphael, 1986).

 Categorize the group’s questions.  Most questions made up on the spot fall into the category of “Right There.”  A few may fall into “Think and Search.”  Little to no “Author and Me” or “On My Own.”

 In order to have a balance of question types, questions must be prepared ahead of time.  How often do we check for understanding with our students by asking “Right There” questions?  Is this always a bad thing?  

 Turn to a partner and discuss situations where each type of question would be appropriate in an afterschool reading lesson.  Share your partner’s thoughts with another pair of individuals. 

 Right There: Help determine if a student is paying attention and understanding what he or she is reading.  Think and Search: Help determine if a student has a holistic understanding of the text he or she is reading.  Author and Me: Help determine whether a student is able to interpret the larger implied messages in a text.  On My Own: Help determine whether a student is able to apply messages from the text to his or her own prior knowledge and experiences.

 Activity 2: Imagine that you are teaching a group of students two-digit subtraction with regrouping. Create 3 questions that you might ask students during some part of the learning process.

 If you’re like most teachers, the biggest majority of the questions would center around students being able to calculate the correct answer.  These are certainly important questions that should be asked.  But there are many more types of questions that relate to math concepts and processes.

 What do the numbers in the problem represent?  How is _____ related to ____?  What evidence supports your conclusion?  Can you create a model of this problem OR can you create an equation from this modeled problem?  What patterns did you notice in…?

 Make sense of problems.  Use abstract and quantitative reasoning.  Use evidence and reasoning to critique the reasoning of others.  Use models.  Use tools.  Be precise.  Make use of structure.  Look for regularity in repeated reasoning (Everette, 2013).

 Probing questions refer to having students explain, reword, defend, and critique their thoughts about a particular topic.  It stimulates the nerve cells of the brain to grow new connections and improve existing ones.  Helps improve the feedback process by generating some level of self-feedback.  Has to be planned ahead and done deliberately.

 Probe both right and wrong answers. Students will quickly pick up on a teacher who only probes incorrect answers.  Don’t try to probe everything. Time is always a factor. Planning ahead will help you determine which questions and topics you are going to probe and how you will probe them.  Don’t wait too long for feedback. Probing delays feedback, which is worth it up to a point. Keep in mind the age and level of the students when deciding how far to take a particular probing session.

 No pun intended!  “Are there any questions?” is the least effective way to question small children.

 Proper questioning can improve achievement in reading and math.  There are no bad questions; it’s a matter of using questions appropriately for given situations.  Effective questioning must be deliberate and planned in advance.  Probing can help to reinforce and expand a student’s learning about a particular topic if done correctly.

Everette, M. (2013). A guide to the 8 mathematical practice standards. Retrieved from teaching/2013/03/guide-8-mathematical- practice-standards. Raphael, T. (1986). Teaching question answer relationships, revisited. The ReadingTeacher (39) 6,