The document outlines the rationale and agenda for a one-day seminar on improving questioning techniques in the classroom. It notes that teachers often feel pressure to cover curriculums which leads them to rely on low-level questioning that does not engage students in meaningful learning. Research shows that 80% of questions asked by teachers are not cognitively complex. The seminar aims to share strategies for planning and implementing powerful questioning using frameworks like Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge to build students' language, writing, metacognition, and engagement skills. The agenda covers examining typical classroom questioning, defining powerful questions, and techniques for oral language, vocabulary, writing, metacognition, and changing classroom culture through questioning

1. Rationale
Often the pressure of “covering the curriculum” interferes with teachers’ desires to engage students in the most
powerful learning opportunities possible. Teachers find themselves rushing and overloading students with drills and
practice, mind-numbing lectures, and barrages of recall-level questions. Educators do this with the best intentions: they
want students to be successful and are trying to provide them with every last tidbit of information, hoping that details or
skills that have never “stuck” before will somehow, this time, “stick.”
Educators must break the pattern of pelting students with low-level question after low-level question, day after day. John
Hattie, who has conducted the most comprehensive meta-analysis of factors that influence student learning, is only the
latest researcher to present the shocking facts: 80 percent of the questions that teachers ask are not cognitively complex.
The reality is simple. Powerful questioning techniques are essential if students are to master the content and skills
necessary for success in academia, the workplace, and in life. This one-day seminar will support educators in improving
their questioning techniques. Specific questioning strategies and classroom tasks will be shared.
Agenda
The Reality of Questioning in American Classrooms
What Is a Powerful Question?
Planning for Powerful Questioning
Bloom’s Taxonomy – cognitive demand
Webb’s DOK – task design
Essential Questions
Questioning That Builds Oral Language Skills – improving think/pair/share; Teach Like a Champion strategies; speaking
in paragraphs (J. Zwiers)
Questioning That Enriches Vocabulary – levels of knowing a word; word sort; strategies from Janet Allen; concept
attainment; creating & understanding analogies
Questioning That Builds Better Writers – teacher conferences; peer conferences; writing groups
Questioning That Increases Metacognition – processing your process (math); history of the piece/project; final draft
reflections
Questioning That Changes Classroom Culture – structured argument talking protocol; Socratic discussion
BRING THIS NEW ONE-DAY WORKSHOP ON SITE!
Better Questions, Better Results!
Developed by Angela Peery & Colleagues
Call or email Angela for more information.
drangelapeery@gmail.com
843.252.2173