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Learning and Teaching should be Inclusive and Enjoyable:

Questioning
 

Questioning is a key aspect of the teaching and learning process.   There is evidence that teachers can improve their use of questions, focusing on types of questions and strategies for using them.   Questions should draw pupils into the learning process as well as checking on acquisition of knowledge.

Points Arising from Research
 

	Improving questioning was one of the keys to raising attainment identified by Black and Wiliam in Inside the Black Box (see Formative Assessment)
	Teachers ask 300-400 questions per day (though many of these are procedural
	Most teachers’ questions are lower-order. Increasing higher-order questions to around 50% of the total can raise attainment and improve pupil attitudes
	Most teachers’ questions are answered in less than a second, often by the teacher him- or herself. Increasing wait time to 3 seconds for lower order questions and 10 seconds for higher order ones improves the number and quality of answers
	Pupils fear being made to look silly and this inhibits them in answering
	The importance of pupils articulating ideas themselves means that it is important to try to get them to ask questions
	Low ability and younger children benefit from questions after looking at source material; high ability pupils benefit from being given questions before source material
	When pupils ask questions this can lead to more talk, higher-level thinking and can give social benefits

Key Elements of Questioning
 
Purpose of question:

	They can help the teacher gauge how effectively pupils are learning
	They can assist the teacher in forward planning
	They can be used to involve pupils in on-going classwork
	They can give pupils opportunities to articulate their understanding
	They should give opportunities for successful answers, but should also provide challenge
	Pupils’ communication skills can be improved
	Social skills can also be improved
	Pupils can be invited to ask questions themselves, which can lead to more sophisticated discussions
	Pupils can be led to question their own learning and enter the realms of metacognition (reflecting on the learning process), with wide-ranging benefits

Types of questions:

	Lower-order questions may simply call for a memorised fact; higher-order ones will invite the pupil to explore an idea and give a more expansive answer
	Closed questions call for a simple factual response and may often be answered by “Yes” or “No”; open questions invite a more extensive response, often without “rightness” or “wrongness” being an issue
	There are many different ways of categorising types of questions, with Socratic questioning being a specific example. This promotes the idea that pupils should be encouraged to explore, to consider reasons and evidence, to project forward to consider implications/consequences etc
	One much-used system of analysing questions is through Bloom’s Taxonomy...

Bloom’s taxonomy:

 

This divides types of learning into what may be seen as an ascending hierarchy:   Knowledge (recall of factual information) Comprehension (showing understanding of the information recalled) Application (consideration of practical relevance of information) Analysis (ability to investigate elements of the information) Evaluation (ability to make judgements about the nature of information) Synthesis (using information to move forward in a creative way)

	Questions can be devised to cover these six areas in the teaching process
	This process allows for consideration of differentiation in formulation of questions.   Broadly, more able pupils should be encouraged to explore the higher levels
	In the planning process, the teacher may consider different types of questions for the different types of learning

Teacher self-evaluation:

	It is believed to be important that teachers take stock of their use of questions
	How many questions do we ask?
	How many lower-order ones do we ask?
	How many higher-order?
	What wait time do we give? (i.e. time allowed for a pupil to answer)
	How do we respond to pupils’ responses?
	To what extent do we encourage pupils to formulate their own questions?
	Do we wait for full attention from the class before asking a question?
	How often do we answer questions ourselves?
	How many different pupils answer questions?
	Are certain pupils invited to answer repeatedly? Do some seldom/never answer?
	How else do we invite responses, apart from direct questions?

Practical strategies:

	Invite pupils to make up questions about a topic before it has been taught,  promoting a sense of enquiry
	Use a “Question Wall” or “Question Box” where pupils can put questions which occur as a block of work is in progress
	When a pupil answers, rather than commenting, invite another pupil to
	Set up pairs or groups to answer more difficult questions
	Don’t allow a “hands up” approach. Instead, nominate pupils to answer
	Set homework of returning the next day with a question
	Have pupils make up questions for their peers on work in hand
	Give marks for good questions rather than good answers
	When a question is proving difficult, ask a pupil to ask the question again
	For a difficult question, have pupils write answers prior to class discussion of them
	When you ask a pupil a question, don’t move towards the pupil, but move away so that the rest of the class feels involved
	Use the recapping at the end of the lesson to exploit question types
	Similarly in the review session at the beginning of the next lesson
	Promote the idea of asking questions through internet search engines
	Invite a pupil to teach part of a lesson, including appropriate questions
	When a question is proving difficult, ask a pupil to ask the question again
	For a difficult question, have pupils write answers prior to class discussion of them
	Invite a pupil to teach part of a lesson, including appropriate questions

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