The webinar on questioning techniques emphasizes the importance of higher order thinking (HOT) in education and the role of effective questioning in fostering this cognitive skill. It explores various types of questions, strategies for improving questioning practices, and methods to encourage student engagement and critical thinking. The session outlines principles for planning questions, responding to students, and adapting techniques when students do not respond, aiming to enhance overall learning outcomes.

1. Welcome to the Webinar
by

2. Questioning Techniques:
The heart of Higher
Order Thinking
Shagufta Shazadi
Specialist Assessment, Monitoring & Evaluation
Aug, 25th 2020

3. Outline
 What is thinking & higher order thinking?
 How to improve higher order thinking?
 Why do we ask questions?
 Kinds of questions
 Planning questions
 Create HOTS
 Principles of questioning
 Strategies to use when student respond?
 Strategies to use when student don’t respond
 Strategies for responding to student questions

4. Wait & Think?
 A study was once conducted to find out how teachers ask questions. This was
observed in a Grade 6 science class. A tape recorder was hidden under a
demonstration table. The teacher conducted a discussion of the lesson for
forty minutes.
 She was able to ask 29 questions, all of which are of the “what” type. Maybe
they were all answered. They were simple recall.
 Has the teacher developed the pupils’ thinking skills?

5. What is thinking?
It’s a cognitive activity, consciously using our brain to;
Thinking
Make sense
of
something
An idea
Activity
Process
information
Solve
problems
Make
decisions

6. What is higher order thinking?
 A cognitive process in which students can analyze,
evaluate, create and interpret the text they are
reading at complex levels.
 They can process text at deep levels, make
judgments, and detect shades of meaning.
 They can make critical interpretations and
demonstrate high levels of insight and
sophistication in their thinking.
 They are able to make inferences, draw relevant
and insightful conclusions, use their knowledge in
new situations, and relate their thinking to other
situations and to their own background knowledge.

7. For instance
higher order thinking be like..
Cooperative decision making (Evaluating)
 Imagine a situation in which a plane crashes in
the ocean. There are a dozen survivors, all with
their own stories, but only one boat that can hold
no more than six people.
 After hearing of each survivor's hopes, students
must work in groups to decide which survivors will
have a spot on the boat.
“Such a task inspires students to collaborate and
draw conclusions supported by evidences”

8. How to increase higher order
thinking?

9. Encourage questioning

10. Why do we ASK questions?
1. For assessing cognition
-determine one’s knowledge and understanding
-promote high level thinking
Examples:
 What is likely to happen if the ozone layer of the atmosphere continues to deteriorate?
 Why does is sound heard louder when under water than out of it?

11. 2. For verification
-to determine the exactness or accuracy of the result of an activity or
performance,
Examples:
 Was the weight of liquid displace exactly the same as the weight of object
immersed in it?
 Is lightning seen before the thunder is heard?
 Experiment if oxygen reacts with Hydrogen?

12. 3. For creative thinking
the question or the direction asks the pupils to present their own ideas or new
ways of doing things.
Examples:
 How will you present the layers of the earth to your classmates?
 How can you demonstrate soil less gardening?
 Suggest ways to overcome global warming

13. 4. For evaluating
-to elicit responses that include judgment, value, and choice
-it also asks personal opinion about an event, a policy or a person
Examples:
 Was your classmates’ slide presentation well done?
 How do you reflect on the current political situation in your country?

14. 5. For productive thinking
-includes cognitive reasoning
-analyses facts,
-recognizes patterns or trends
-invokes memory and recall
Examples:
 How can we apply the concept of the least common multiple in other
situations?

15. 6. For motivating
-to arouse the interest of students and focus attention
-situating the students in the right mood.
Examples:
 How would you like to know how your favorite flower can remain fresh longer?
 Did you ever train a pet?
 Can perpendicular lines be intersecting lines?

16. Kind of questions LOTs & HOTs
The kind of questions we ask determine the level of thinking we develop.
LOTs (Lower Order Thinking) Skills
questions demands low level responses.
They require responses of the simple recall
or memory type answers.
Examples:
1. What was the temperature range
yesterday?
2. What insects transmit dengue fever?
3. What part of the plant serves as
reproduction?
HOTs (Higher order thinking Skills)
questions call for higher-level thinking ability. WHY
and HOW questions require analysis of observations.
The conclusion is arrived after weighing evidence or
establishing a pattern out of a recorded tabulation of
data.
Examples
1. Why does temperature continue to rise from early
morning till about noontime?
2. How does the water cycle occurs? And why it is
important?
Such questions request for information to inquire about
something

17. Planning questions
1. Decide on your purpose for asking questions. What is the intended learning
outcome? What do you want your students to learn by the end of the lesson?
Your purpose should help you determine what levels of questions you will ask.
2. Select the content for questioning. Choose material which you consider
important rather than trivial. Students will study and learn based on the
questions you ask. Do not mislead them by emphasizing less important material.
3. Ask questions that require an extended response or at least a "content"
answer.
4. Phrase your questions so that the task is clear to students.

18. Challenge your students
 Avoid questions that can be answered "yes" or "no" unless you are going to
follow with more questions to explore reasoning. E.g. why do carbohydrates
are important for your body?
 Your questions should not contain the answers. Avoid implied response
questions when you are genuinely seeking an answer from the class. A
question such as "Don't we all agree that the author of the
poem/article/lesson exaggerated the dangers of mountains to strengthen his
viewpoint?" will not encourage student response.
 Until you are quite skilled at classroom questioning you should write your
main questions in advance. This is called "scripting." Arrange your list in
some logical sequence (specific to general, lower level to higher level (Blooms
Taxonomy), a sequence related to content). Having a prepared list of
questions will help to assure that you ask questions appropriate for your goals
and representative of the important material.

19. Create HOTs
Question STEM
+
What do you want them to know?
= HOT
Example
How would you improve…. STEM
Your dietary plan to weight lost/gain?
= How would you improve your dietary plan to weight loss? (Higher Order
Thinking) creating

20. Create HOTs (some examples)
Ask questions that help them process information:
How would you categorize ___? a virus?
What can we infer from ___? the two nation theory?
How would you summarize ___? the story? text? the role of ministers in democracy?
What was the moment from the story ___? that had greatest impact on you?
What conclusions can you draw___? from the discussion? Dialogue? Lesson?
Ask questions that require them to apply the information they’ve learned:
What would you predict ___? for Imtiaz’s future in the story?
How would you prioritize ___? your work?
How would you improve ____? your immune system to fight against the virus?
How could you prove or disprove __? that the stomata are underside of the leaf?
What evidence supports ___? the big bang theory?
Stem
Stem

21. Principles of questioning
 Ask both simple and challenging questions, so that every student may participate.
 Allow wait time but don’t exceed it from 30 sec
 Avoid double barreled questions
Example of a double-barreled item:
Would you like to travel in Sukkur express at least 3 times a week.
 If one disagrees with this statement, with which part does he or
she disagree? Does the person dislike travelling in Sukkur
express? Does the person not like to travel at all? Does he or she
travel only 1 day a week instead or 3?
 Never interrupt a student who is attempting to answer
 Do not ask more than one question during classroom discussion
 Ensure audibility
 Personalize questions (Pretend you are… what do you do?)

22.  Avoid bias (e.g., age, ethnicity, gender or disabilities).
 Avoid “loading” the questions by unintentionally incorporating
your own opinions into the items. This can bias the results and
is particularly important with attitudinal items.
 Example of “loading”:
Is there any reason to keep this program?
Revised:
Does this program offer material not obtained in other
courses?

23.  Be concise and be clear. Long, complex items can lead to confusion. Items should
challenge the students’ understanding, not the ability to uncover hidden meanings
Example
Student that are not taking a psychology course but are taking a psychology internship but
have not yet fulfilled the requirements of their practicum experience should come to
the seminar but not attend the training workshop.
 Use the level appropriate vocabulary .

24. Strategies to use when students
RESPOND
1. Reinforcement: Make positive statements, use positive nonverbal
communication. Smile, node and maintain eye contact. Type of reinforcement
will be determined by:
 The correctness of the answer
If a student gives an answer that is incorrect, the teacher may want to briefly
acknowledge the response, then think of ways to help the student provide a correct
answer. The teacher could use strategies such as probing, paraphrasing, or asking the
question in a different way.
 The number of times a student has responded
Teacher may want to provide a student who has never responded in class with more
reinforcement than someone who responds often.

25. 2. Probing
 Probes are useful in getting students more involved in critical analysis of their own
and other students' ideas.
 Analyze a student's statement, make a student aware of underlying assumptions, or
justify or evaluate a statement.
E.g. Teacher: What are some ways we might reduce air pollution? Student: The government should close all the factories
producing smoke. Teacher: How it will affect a common man on your suggestion?
 Help students deduce relationships. Teachers may ask students to judge the implications
of their statements or to compare and contrast concepts.
E.g. Teacher: What are some advantages and disadvantages of having grades given in courses? Student 1: Grades can be a
motivator for students to learn. Student 2: Too much pressure on grades causes some students to stop learning. Teacher: If
both of those statements are true, what generalizations can you make about the relationship between motivation and
learning?
 Have students clarify or elaborate on their comments by asking for more information.
E.g.
Teacher: Could you please develop your ideas further? Can you provide an example of that concept?

26. 3. Adjust/refocus
 When a student provides a response that appears out of context, the teacher
can refocus to encourage the student to tie her response to the content being
discussed.

27. Strategies to use when students DON’T
RESPOND
1. Redirect
 When a student responds to a question, the teacher can ask another student to
comment on his/her statement. E.g. Teacher: Ali, do you agree with Akber's
comment?
Teacher: From your experience, Aisha, does what Mussa said, said true/right?
Teacher: Muneeb, can you give me an example of the concept that Ayesha mentioned?
2. Rephrasing
This technique is used when a student provides an incorrect response or no response.
The instructor can try to reword the question to make it clearer.
 The question may have been poorly phrased. Teacher: What is
photosynthesis? Student: (No response) Teacher: How does a plant prepare its food?
 The instructor can provide some information to help students come up with the answer.
 The instructor can break the question down into more manageable parts.

28. 3. Using “wait time”
 One factor that can have powerful effects on student participation is the
amount of time a teacher pauses between asking a question and doing
something else (calling on a student or rewording the question).

29. Strategies for responding to student questions
Listen to the student's question. After you are certain that you understand the
question, be sure that other students have heard and understood the question.
Then proceed with one of the following strategies:
1. Answer the question yourself.
2. Redirect the question to the class.
3. Attempt to help the student answer his own question.
4. Ask the student to stop after class to discuss the question.
5. Refer the student to a resource where s/he can find the answer.

30. Take away
“A good teacher makes you think even when
you don’t want to”
(Fisher, 1998, Teaching Thinking)

31. Q & A