2. Why are questions important
Why are questions important? Teachers ask as many as 300 to 400 questions a day. Questions guide students’ thinking and determines how students will process materials presented to them. Questions are the single, most influential teaching activity.

3. Why ask questions?
Focus Student attention
Help students interact with content
Check for understanding
Evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson
Increase the level of thinking

4. Different questions elicit different thought processes.
Four types of questions
Convergent
Divergent
Low-level
High-level

5. Convergent
Have one correct answer
Convergent questions are needed to help students sharpen their focus and attention to detail and accuracy.
What is 3+4?
What are the days of the week?
What are the planets in our solar system?
What year did the US land on the moon?

6. Divergent
Open-ended, more than one correct answer
Divergent questions help students to delve into imagination and creativity while at the same time, build their confidence.
What are some examples of amphibians?
What is your favorite book?
What animals are mammals?

7. Low-level
Requires only mental recall to be answered
Building blocks to higher-level thinking
The student only has to remember something that he/she already knows.
What is the order of the planets in our solar system?
What are three simple machines?

8. High-level
The student must do some kind of processing of information in order to answer the question.
The processes include comparing, describing, inferring, hypothesizing, analyzing, and making judgments or evaluations.

9. Examples
Compare your community to the communities of the colonists.
What do you think will happen to this paper clip when I drop it into the cup of water? Will it sink or float?
What do you think life was like for the colonists?

10. Bloom’s Taxonomy
Most widely used classification system for analyzing educational questions in the cognitive domain.
Teachers tend to ask primarily low-level questions and the students lose the opportunity to think critically.

11. Bloom’s Taxonomy
Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation

12. Knowledge level
Knowledge questions encourage students to recall information in the form that they learned it.
Knowledge level verbs
Defines Matches
Describes Names
Identifies Recalls
Labels Recites
Lists Recognizes

13. Comprehension level
Encourage students to communicate an idea or phenomenon in a new or different form
Comprehension level verbs:
Discriminates generalizes
Edits gives examples
Estimates infers
Explains predicts
Extends summarizes

14. Application level
Encourage students to apply ideas or skills to new situations or to use the knowledge they possess to solve a problem.
Application level verbs:
Construct translate
Demonstrates relates
Modifies show
Computes Put to use
Illustrate Prove

15. Analysis level
Requires students to break down something, such as an idea, into its constituent parts or to uncover the unique characteristics of a “thing”.
Analysis level verbs:
Break Down Differentiate
Classify Discriminate
Categorize Simplify
Contrast Criticize
Debate Outline

16. Synthesis level
Encourage students to put the information back together in imaginative and/or original ways.
Synthesis level verbs:
Blend Modify
Construct Integrate
Create Combine
Design Arrange
Develop Reorganize

17. Evaluation level
Require students to judge something by determining a standard and comparing it to the standard.
Evaluation level verbs:
Appraise Evaluate
Argue Grade
Assess Judge
Critique Validate
Defend Justify

18. Useful questioning techniques
Wait time
Phrasing questions
Planning ahead
Teacher response to questions (redirection, prompting, probing, praise)

19. Wait time
After asking a question, the teacher waits 3-5 seconds before accepting answers
Give students time to think before answering questions
Results in dramatic changes in student responses.

20. Results of Wait time:
The length of student responses is increased 300 to 400%.
Students increase their use of evidence, or of logic based on evidence, to support their statements.
The failure to respond to questions decreases
The necessity for disciplinary measures decreases.
The variety of students participating in discussion increases.
Students gain confidence in their ability to construct responses to questions.

21. Phrasing questions
How questions are phrased impact the quality of response and the quality of thinking required.
Don’t begin a question with a name. This engages only 1 student, all the others are “off the hook”.
Avoid beginning each question the same way. “Who can tell me….”

22. Distributing questions:
Research indicates that many teachers:
Call on high-achieving students more than low achieving students
Call on boys more than girls
Call on white students more than minority students
Call on students in the front row more than the back row
Call on students on one side of the room
Use unequal patterns of questioning, students have unequal opportunities to process material and transfer to long-term memory.

23. Planning questions
Be sure to write questions ahead of time to ensure higher level thinking questions are utilized

24. Responding to student answers
Once students have responded to a question, the teacher decides whether to praise, acknowledge, redirect, probe, prompt, correct, or ask a new question.

25. Praise
Use selectively
Can limit further thinking when viewed as a terminal response.
Praise must be meaningful
Stay away from global praise- good job
Be specific- I like the way you used your experience to justify your answer.
Tell why it was a good job.

26. Redirection
Asking the same divergent (open-ended) question to several students in a sequence of uninterrupted by the teacher’s comments.
Allows teachers to get contributions from several students.
Allows more people to participate in lessons.
Allows class members to continue to process the question.

27. Prompting
Leading the student to the correct answer by a hint or a series of hints.
Encourage the students to take risks and make educated guesses.
Teaches the students how to use various thought processes to find answers to questions and problems.
Prompting is a difficult skill because teachers cannot plan the hint questions ahead of time, one has to think on one’s feet.

28. Probing
Probing is a means of getting students to elaborate on their initial responses to questions, particularly when the initial response to a question has been minimal.
Asking the student for further clarification, explanation interpretation, etc.
Provides opportunity for more in-depth thinking.

29. Correct
Correct misinformation and prompt for correct information.
Do not repeat the wrong answer, only repeat back the correct answer.
Students can stop listening after the incorrect answer is given. Make sure that the students are paying attention when the correct answer is given.

30. Effective practices related to questioning
Plan the questions that are to be asked during a lesson
Clarify the purpose of the questions
Use a balanced combination of low/high/convergent/divergent questions