1. Why are questions so important?
Why our focus on questioning?
Interject the idea that more and more feedback from research, OfSTED and expert panels are highlighting that it is oral and written language development that is key to fostering good learning and and aiding good progress.
Teaching students to handle and create questions that can promote resilience and independence in learning, development of higher order thinking skills and ultimately move learning from good to outstanding and enable pupils to make outstanding progress.

2. Purposes of questions To interest, engage and challenge
To explore emotions and feelings
To find out facts or clarify understanding
To check on prior knowledge and understanding
To stimulate recall and use of existing knowledge and experience in order to create new understanding and meaning
To clarify misconceptions
To extend thinking from the concrete and factual to the analytical and evaluative
To promote reasoning, problem solving, evaluation and the formulation of hypotheses (i.e. the use of thinking skills)
To promote thinking about what has been learnt and how it has been learnt.

3. What does research show?
Research shows that its not the fact that you ask questions but how you ask them…
Do you:
Use wait time
(3 seconds has been identified as optimum response time for lower cognitive questions, with no threshold for higher cognitive questions)
Use a basketball approach
(the use of supplementary questions or a redirection of questions will unpick detail and consolidate links between key ideas/ reveal misconceptions)
Encourage collaboration in the development of responses
(A group response encourages speculation and risk taking which in turn fosters learning and reveals misconceptions).
Cotton K. Classroom Questioning NW Regional Educational Laboratory 1988

4. What does good ‘talk’ look like in your classroom?
How would you use questions and talk in your classroom?

5. Delving deeper…
Can you give examples of how questions have lead to enhanced thinking or stimulated deep discussion and learning.
THINK, PAIR, SHARE

6. Sharing good practice
How does / How would your use of questions support
Pupil progress
Creativity
Resilience (Building learning power)

7. Thinking further…
Is there a difference between the way you use questions in key stages 3 and 4?
THINK, PAIR, SHARE

8. Importance of questioning
Questioning is a critical skill for teachers because it is:
the most common form of interaction between teacher and pupil;
an element of virtually every type and model of lesson;
a key method of providing appropriate challenge for all pupils;
an important influence on the extent of progress made;
the most immediate and accessible way for a teacher to assess learning.
A good way to promote discussion
Questioning
OHT 4.2

9. Effective questioning
reinforces and revisits the learning objectives;
includes ‘staging’ questions to draw pupils towards key understanding or to increase the level of challenge in a lesson as it proceeds;
involves all pupils;
engages pupils in thinking for themselves;
promotes justification and reasoning, possibly through the use of follow up questions;
It is frequently more open in nature, permitting a range of correct responses
uses questions beginning with stems such as ‘Why…?’, ‘How come…?’, ‘How do…?’, ‘What would happen if…?’.
creates an atmosphere of trust where pupils’ opinions and ideas are valued;
Questioning
OHT 4.6a

10. The effect of changing a question
When revisiting the topic of photosynthesis, the following question is commonly asked:
‘What is the equation for photosynthesis?’
What would be the effect of asking:
‘If plants need sunlight to make food, how
come the biggest plants don’t grow in
deserts where it is sunny all the time?’
Reference: Black and Wiliam (1998) and Black and Harrison (2001).

11. Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation
Bloom’s taxonomy of questioning – great to read and use as a model for when planning a lesson with discussion or questions)
Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation
Questioning
OHT 4.5

12. Tips for asking questions
Extend thinking time after you have asked a question and after a first response.
Adopt a rule of ‘No hands up’.
Go for basketball not table tennis
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 (lollypop stick approach).
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. Discussion encourages collaboration and clarification of thought.
Impose a minimum number of words that must be used in the answer
Define a list of key words that should be used in the answer

13. Pitfalls of questioning
It is easy to fall into the trap of:
not being clear about why you are asking the question
asking too many closed questions; asking too many short-
answer, recall-based questions;
asking too many questions in a short period of time
asking difficult questions with no build up
asking questions then giving the answer yourself
asking ‘guess what I’ve got in my head’ questions;
not involving the whole class
dealing ineffectively with incorrect answers or
misconceptions;
not treating pupil’s answers seriously

14. Strategies for generating questions and discussion:
Big questions
Basketball
Thinking hats
Rich stimulus material (using images or broadcast for example)
5 Ws (when, what, why,
Question stems
Talk cards
Hot seating
Phone a friend

15. Strategies to Promote Open Ended Questioning
Extended Wait Time
It’s Basketball not Table Tennis
What is a ‘good’ question?
Bouncing
Rich Questioning
Might
Tell your neighbour
Group Answers
Idea thoughts
Level Ladders and Questioning
Why? How? What would happen?
Extending
Word Count
Pyramid Discussion

16. Open Ended Questioning

17. Back to alternative Strategies
Extended Wait Time
When asking questions make sure you give enough wait time, it sounds simple but many teachers fall into the trap of not waiting long enough.
Give them time to think!
Paired talk is a good way of getting all pupils to engage with a question before they answer it, not too long, just enough is the key.

18. It’s Basketball not Table Tennis
Back to alternative Strategies
It’s Basketball not Table Tennis
Try to get pupils to bounce answers off each
other, passing them on and commenting on
what has already been said
It’s Teacher …pupil…pupil …pupil…
NOT
Teacher…pupil…teacher…pupil…

19. What is a ‘good’ question?
Back to alternative Strategies
What is a ‘good’ question?
Discuss with students what makes a
‘good’ question. The process can
explicitly show them the difference
between open and closed questions.
They can then come up with
questions on a topic and decide
which are best (and why), and then
move on to discuss and answer
these.

20. Bouncing Bounce answers around the room to
Back to alternative Strategies
Bouncing
Bounce answers around the room to
build on understanding and have
students develop stronger reasoning
out of misconceptions.
E.g.
“Jimmy, what do you think of
Sandra’s answer?”
“Sandra, how could you develop
Carl’s answer to include more detail?”
“Carl, how might you combine all
we’ve heard into a single answer?”

21. Back to alternative Strategies
Rich Questioning
Use an enquiry question to stimulate
high-level thinking in the lesson or
unit.
e.g.
Do scientists invent complicated words to stop other people from understanding what they're up to? OR
Instead of asking “what do you need to do to stay healthy” it might be “Can you put these statements in the correct order. Which do you think has the greatest impact on staying healthy?”

22. ‘Might’ When questioning, insert the word ‘might’ to give students
Back to alternative Strategies
‘Might’
When questioning, insert the
word ‘might’ to give students
greater opportunity to think and
explore possible answers.
e.g.
What is meaning of osmosis?
What might the meaning of
osmosis be?
The first infers a single answer
known by the teacher whereas
the second is inherently more
open.

23. X and Y Ask students why X is an example of Y e.g.
Back to alternative Strategies
X and Y
Ask students why X is an example of Y
e.g.
Why is an apple an example of a fruit?
Why is a fox an example of a mammal?
Questioning in this way avoids
opportunity for students to rely on straight
recall and asks for the underlying
reasoning to be made explicit.

24. Tell your neighbour Students ‘tell their neighbour’ as a
Back to alternative Strategies
Tell your neighbour
Students ‘tell their neighbour’ as a
means of articulating their thoughts.
Ask a question, give thinking time
and then ask students to tell their
neighbour their thoughts.
Tell students what the new topic is and then ask them to tell their neighbour everything they know about it.

25. Group Answers Students work in small groups to
Back to alternative Strategies
Group Answers
Students work in small groups to
agree on answers – when tests are
returned or in other situations.
The process of agreeing should
include reasoning over the validity of
the consensus answer, as well as
reasoned negation of misconceptions
or wrong answers.

26. Idea Thoughts When you have received an answer
Back to alternative Strategies
Idea Thoughts
When you have received an answer
to a question, open up the thinking
behind it by asking what others think
about the idea.
e.g. “What do others think about _________’s idea?”

27. Level Ladders and Questioning
Back to alternative Strategies
Level Ladders and Questioning
Match/name/identify
Use models to explain
Explain
Describe
Apply
Synthesise
Make links L3 L5 L4 L7 L6
Use the vocabulary in the ladder to put questions to pupils at different levels, they can be trained to identify them and can comment on or improve each others answers. It will help you to move away from low level questioning (i.e. Key word answers).

28. Why? How? What would happen?
Back to alternative Strategies
Why? How? What would happen?
Using the words
How…
Why…
What would happen if…
At the start of a question tends to make it
more open-ended and gets better
responses from students .

29. Extending Help students to extend their answers with
Back to alternative Strategies
Extending
Help students to extend their answers with
supplementary questions
Why do think that…
What evidence is there….
What have we done that makes you think that…
Can you justify that…
Can you include the idea of particles…

30. Word Count Set a minimum number of words that must be used.
Back to alternative Strategies
Word Count
Set a minimum number of words that must
be used.
I want you to use at least 10 words in your answer!
Set some words that must be used in the
answer
I want you to include the words particle, bonds and reaction in your answer!
Paired talk works well with these types of approaches.

31. Back to alternative Strategies
Pyramid Discussion
This activity provides a structure for whole class or
group discussion of “big” open-ended questions.
Cut out the six triangles, each of which has a comment about a
big question.
Arrange the triangles into a pyramid…
Placing the comment you most agree with at the top.
Placing the three comments you least agree with at the base of the pyramid.
Placing the two comments you quite agree with in the middle.
Use your pyramid to scaffold discussion of the big question.

32. Plenary/ Reflection How are you going to use these ideas:
In your own lesson
With colleagues in your department
With other teachers in school

33. Question stems you may find useful
How does . . ……….. ?
Why does . . ……….. ?
I wonder whether ?
How would we find . . ?
Do you think . …….. . ?
Would you expect that ..?
What would ?
What happens if . . ?
Can we find a way to . . ?
Where do ?
Why are ?
© Millgate House Education 33