Planning questioning into lessons

Blooms Taxonomy 1956, Bloom researched thousands of questions asked by teachers, categorised them, and arranged the categories into a hierarchy or taxonomy. He related the taxonomy to a ladder – the higher the rung, the deeper the learning. Research has consistently shown that the large majority of questions asked by teachers come from the first two categories, which require factual recall and comprehension. Few questions come from the other categories which require higher order thinking skills

There are some great posters and resources freely available online to help support, promote and remind you about using Bloom's in your classrooms. I reworked a resource I found and updated it with the new blooms which was given out in the last INSET

Each strand of Blooms and what they mean The activities or tasks you can plan in for your lesson to push higher order thinking Question stems to help you plan your higher order questions in class

Preparation for a lesson coming up Think of a lesson you are going to teach this or next week that you want to build questioning into… Use the worksheet to prepare your questions using the scale of blooms to build up the higher order thinking. You can also use the scale to plan activities for the students Use this then throughout your lesson as your prompt sheet Use Question stems from blooms to develop wording of the questions.

Other ideas for how to build in questioning During the lesson students write down questions that they have about the work/particular topic that they are working on. Within the lesson stop and allow students to ask these questions to each other, small groups or to whole class to find the answers. TIP-Question prompts from blooms could be used here to develop wording of the questions. Give the students the sheet to use.

Other ideas for how to build in questioning Students read or listen to a piece of information/story/text. Then they roll a die and ask and answer the questions about the topic. This can be done individually, with a partner, or even whole group. TIP- Teacher makes the resource before hand or get the students to do the hard work and prepare and create the questions for each other/ themselves

Other ideas for how to build in questioning Using lolly pop sticks- Use two colours for name calling sticks. Flip the stick after you've called that student. Coloured coded question sticks with blooms scaled question stems written on them to pick during the class or students pick out

Other ideas for how to build in questioning Using Bloom’s Taxonomy you could produce a series of colour-coded questions (each category being given a different colour) on one aspect of a unit of work you are teaching. You could ask your lower-ability pupils to choose one question from the first three categories (Remember, Understanding, Apply) and if they can manage it, one from another category. You could then get your more able pupils to select one or two questions from the more challenging categories. Doing this will involve pupils of all ability in the learning.

Other ideas for how to build in questioning You could introduce a competitive element into your lessons by giving your questions a currency using Bloom’s Taxonomy as a general guide. Your ‘Knowledge’ questions could be worth one point, your ‘Comprehension’ questions worth two points and so on. Pupils could amass points according to the types of questions they answer.

Other ideas for how to build in questioning Pre write questions on ping pong balls and let students pick them out of a bucket or plastic container to make your critiques or questioning sessions fun and engaging. Ways to Use • You can sort through the balls to tailor your questions to certain topics. • You can use this technique when introducing an new topic at the beginning of a lesson. • You could also pull out appropriate questions to have students answer when talking about a peer’s work throughout the lesson or using in plenaries.