The presentation Kevin Brenner used for Colloquium session 3.1, Asking Different Questions.

1. Ask a Different Question

3. This afternoon’s plan:
➢ Why do meaningful questions matter? Who
should be asking them?
➢ What makes a meaningful question?
➢ How do meaningful questions drive
instruction and assessment, and how do
you create them?
➢ Lesson/unit integration work

4. Schools of the Future: The Big Shift
● Doing vs. knowing
● Student-centered vs. teacher-centered
● Team vs. individual
● Construction of meaning vs. consumption of
information
● Networks vs. schools
● High value demonstrations vs. high stakes
testing
From "Schools of the Future: The Big Shifts" by
Patrick F. Bassett

5. Outcomes from the Big Shift:
- Creativity and entrepreneurial attitudes
- Communication skills
- Collaboration and focus on group success
- Critical thinking
- Character
- Cross-cultural competency
Shared by Pat Bassett at NCAIS 2 Nov 2012

7. Philip Sadler, Ed.D.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Depth vs. Breadth
- Original activities & assessment
- Preconceptions
- Observing and critiquing
instruction

8. “The unlearning of preconceptions
might very well prove to be the
most determinative single factor in
the acquisition and retention of
subject-matter knowledge.”
- David Ausubel 1978

9. Bloom’s Taxonomy
Original (1956):
Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation
Revised (2001):
Remember
Understand
Apply
Analyze
Evaluate
Create

10. Marzano’s Questioning Stems
Knowing
Organizing
Applying
Analyzing
Generating
Evaluating
Integrating

11. Gallagher and Ascher’s Taxonomy
Cognitive-memory - recognition, rote memory,
selective recall
Convergent thinking - analyzing and integrating
data
Divergent thinking - independently generated
data, new perspective on a given topic
Evaluative thinking - judgment, value, choice

12. Asking Powerful Questions
Anabel Jensen

13. The Right Way to Ask Questions in
the Classroom
from Edutopia
by Ben Johnson
“...sometimes the students do not understand
that they do not understand, and if they do not
know what they do not know, there is no way
that they can ask a question about it.”

14. Asking Good Questions
from Educational Leadership
by Kenneth E. Vogler
“Teachers can develop [questioning] skills
through a combination of knowledge and
practice. Once honed, verbal questioning
becomes an efficient formative assessment
tool, helps students make connections to prior
knowledge, and stimulates cognitive growth.”

15. The Art of Asking Questions
from Faculty Focus
by Maryellen Weimer, PhD
- Prepare questions
- Play with questions
- Preserve good questions
- Ask questions that you don’t know the
answer to
- Ask questions you can’t answer
- Don’t ask open-ended questions when you
know the answer you’re looking for

16. Question Formation Technique:
Produce Your Questions
Four essential rules for producing your own
questions:
• Ask as many questions as you can.
• Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer the
questions.
• Write down every question exactly as it is
stated.
• Change any statement into a question.

17. Question Formation Technique:
Improve Your Questions
• Categorize the questions as closed- or open-ended.
• Name the advantages and disadvantages of
each type of question.
• Change questions from one type to another.

18. Question Formation Technique:
Prioritize the Questions
• Choose your three most important questions.
• Why did you choose these three as the most
important?
Next Steps
• How are you going to use your questions?
© The Right Question Institute. Used with permission in
The Harvard Education Letter, Sept/Oct. 2011

19. Planning, Instruction, & Assessment
Taking time to craft meaningful
essential questions while planning
lessons and units will guide instruction
and provide formative and summative
assessment material.

20. Lesson/Unit Integration Work:
Think of one lesson or unit that you will be
teaching in the coming weeks and work through
the Question Formation Technique to generate
a meaningful essential question(s) to guide
instruction and assessment.
Use the Lisa Chesser article for question ideas.