Questioning

1. Teaching and Learning Briefing
Focus: Questioning
Questioning is a vital instrument in a teacher’s toolkit. Careful and planned questioning can ensure that you
are stretching your most able students whilst supporting the needs of the less able. You should be aware of
your students’ abilities so when planning your lessons questioning should form an important part of this
process.
Target Questioning
Target your questions appropriately and exactly for
each student. Use differentiated question structures
to help you to do this. Re-phrase questions for
students if they are struggling.
Knowledge – What is…?
Comprehension – Explain / Identify…
Application – Can you…? How have you…?
Analysis – Why? How?
Synthesis – How would you improve…?
Evaluation – What is your opinion…? How
effective…?
If you would like your own copy
The Blooms Question Prompter.
Please email
RebeccaLay@Chalfonts.org
Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce
This technique gets students to listen carefully to
each other’s answers and engage with what others
have to say in the class.
Pose – Provide a question; ensure that you
ask the students to remain reflective.
Pause – Give the class thinking time to
consider their answer.
Pounce – Ask a student for his or her answer.
This student must respond quickly.
Bounce – Ask another student about their
opinion of the first student’s answer to the
question. (An alternative is to get the first
student to question another student of their
choice on this topic.)
@TeacherToolkit
Student Questions
Getting students to write questions on a topic is a
great way for them to consolidate their
understanding and to help them to engage with the
topic further.
Introduce a topic and in pairs or small groups get
students to produce questions of varying levels of
difficulty. The students must be able to answer
their own questions so they can test others in the
class.
At the start of a lesson or the start of a topic get
students to record questions they have about the
subject on post it notes / mini-whiteboards.
Return to these questions at the end of the lesson
or topic and hopefully they should now be able to
answer them for themselves because of the
learning in the lesson or they can ask a peer their
question.
Supporting students to understand
what a question is asking
 Command words – practice, practice,
practice.
 Match question to answer. If you can’t, why
not? Make some answers quite similar so
they identify what the different command
words are asking them to do and can see the
difference between what the different
command words mean in reality.

2. Reflective Questions
Before, during and after a lesson we should be
asking questions of ourselves to reflect on the
learning of our students.
 How is prior learning assessed?
 How is understanding systematically checked?
 What interventions are needed in the lesson?
Why?
 Is the support on offer having an impact on
progress?
 Are the tasks challenging? Do they match
students’ needs?
 Do I have high expectations of all?
 Are all learners enthusiastic? Interested?
Resilient? Engaged?
 Is teaching of RWCN exceptional?
 Are LSAs being used effectively?
 Is the homework set appropriate?
 Is the behaviour policy being applied
consistently?
Assertive Questioning
Buzz groups work on a thought provoking question.
The teacher asks individuals to give their group’s
answer. These individuals are nominated by the
teacher. The teacher gets a number of answers
saying just ‘thank you’ after each, and perhaps
‘why did your group think that?’. The correct
answer is not given away. The teacher then
encourages the class to discuss these various
answers, and to agree, and justify a ‘class answer’.
Minority views are allowed, but the aim is
consensus. Only when the class has agreed its
answer, does the teacher ‘give away’ the right
answer. The teacher reviews the class’s thinking.
With Assertive Questioning:
 All students are thinking – “the teacher might
choose me”.
 All students are talking and checking each
others’ thinking – they need to agree an answer
with its reasoning. Group members will be
cross if one of their number misrepresents their
group’s answer to the class. So peer-pressure
increases participation.
 You get detailed and representative feedback
on all the class’s thinking, and can eventually
correct misconceptions before they take root.
 There is lots of thinking time.
 Students are usually very comfortable to give
answers, as they are answering for their group
not as an individual.
You get the best representative feedback on
understanding if you ask supplementary questions
like:
 ‘Why did your group think that?’
 ‘Did any other groups get that
answer?’…’Why?’
 ‘Has anyone got a different answer?’ ….’Why?
(geoffpetty.com)
Resources, ideas, advice and inspiration
@TeacherToolkit
@LearningSpy
@tes
https://pragmaticreform.wordpress.com/
http://makinglearnersextraordinary.com/
https://educationechochamber.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/about-the-echo-chamber/(see the right hand side)
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct14/vol72/num02/The-Right-Questions.aspx
geoffpetty.com
The Question Formulation Technique
Improving students’ ability to ask questions, based
on research by Dan Rothstein.
1. Design a question focus. (Teacher)
2. Produce questions. (Student)
3. Work with closed-ended and open-ended
questions. (Teacher and group support in good
question guidance)
4. Prioritize questions. (Students)
5. Plan next steps. (Teacher and students)
6. Reflect.(students asked ‘what did you learn?’
and ‘how did you learn that?’)
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-
leadership/oct14/vol72/num02/The-Right-
Questions.aspx for more details