1. QUESTIONING The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
---Albert Einstein

2. Learning Targets Recognize the 7 Principles of Questioning
Explore each Principle for Further Learning
Connect Information to Current Practice

3. Why Study Questioning?
“We are the species whose trademark is to think and question.” (The Upright Thinkers: Pantheon, 2015)
Questioning helps students:
Be Intentional; Focus
Build a Thinking Process
Become more Engaged
Think Independently
Take Risks
Learn
Build on Prior Knowledge
Assess where Students Are

4. What does the research say about questioning?
Research states that effective questioning strategies have a positive impact on overall student achievement.
The outcome of a good education should be to know how to think, to extend the mind beyond the obvious, and to gain the ability to develop creative solutions to problems.
Our thinking skills affect how well we can receive and process new information.
“To question well is to teach well”
(Wilen, 1991)

5. A “GOOD” Question…(according to a student)
Makes you think (will need to define thinking!)
Can have more than one answer.
Can be asked in different ways.
Can’t be answered just in the book or from a lecture.
Makes you think about life.
Makes you want to know more.
Makes you smarter!!!!

6. What do some experts say?
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
--Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist
Won Nobel Prize for Literature 1988
The power to question is the basis of all human progress Indira Gandhi

7. One last expert…

8. 7 Principles of Questioning
1. Involuntary Questioning: Pages 1 & 2
We believe that students comet to school with the need to learn and when they are in school, they do not have the right not to learn.
2. Equalizing Quality and Quantity: Pages 3-5
We believe that students are temporarily under-trained, not permanently under-brained.
3. Staying in the Asking Mode: Pages 6-7
We believe in getting students to do most of the thinking-work.
4. The QRQ Pattern: Pages 8-9
We inquire to hear reasoning, not answers.
5. Keeping Positive in Tone and Inquiry: Pages 10-11
We believe in maintaining a positive environment of inquiry.
6. Discouraging Guessing: Page 12
We want to discourage episodic learning. 
7. Overcoming “I Don’t Know” Responses: Pages 13-14
We believe that “I don’t know” is a learned behavior used to avoid engagement.

9. Principle 1: Involuntary Questioning

10. Questions in the Classroom
The Research…
Teachers were asked how many questions they thought they asked students in a 30 minute period.
Teacher guesstimated 15
Research showed they asked 50
According to Steven Hastings, 2003
Teachers ask 400 questions in a day
That is 70,000 a year
One-third of all teaching time is spent on asking questions

11. Questions in the Classroom
Wait Time
Research shows teachers expect students to answer questions in about 1 second.
Research also shows that most students need 7-9 seconds to answer a higher-order level question.
ELL students and Special Education Students may need longer!

12. Questions in the Classroom
Attend to the Question
Bring Question to Working Memory & Decode
Search Long-term Memory for Relevant Knowledge
Bring Relevant Knowledge to Working Memory & Form a Response
Answer Question Out Loud
Answering a Question as a Process

13. Increased wait time…benefits…
Students
Teachers
Responses increase in length and correctness
Fewer “I don’t Knows”
Increases Self-Efficacy
More students volunteer
More students challenge, expand responses of others
Offer increased # of alternative responses
Increase student-to-student questions
Increased test scores
Questioning becomes more flexible and varied
Decrease number of lower-level questions
Increase quality, variety of open higher-order questions
Ask more follow-up questions
More accurately gauge where student learning is
Ask questions that focus on next logical step of learning to deepen understanding

14. Questions in the Classroom
Tools to Randomize Questioning
Pick Me!– An easy to use app for the iPod, iPad and iPhone that facilitates random student selection. Can be organized by class for convenience
Popsicle Sticks—Low tech but effective
Random Name/Word Picker– This tool allows the teacher to input a class list and facilitates random name picking
Smart Boards—Some Smart Boards have the capability to generate random name selection
Stick Pick—You can use Stick Pick as a random name generator, but the true power of Stick Pick is its ability to display “question stems” that are uniquely tied to each learner’s cognitive or English language ability level

15. Principle 2: Equalizing the Quality and Quantity

16. Questions in the Classroom
Teachers were asked how many questions they guesstimated their students asked in a 30 minute period
Teachers thought 10
Chouinard (2007) found that when at home, speaking with a familiar adult, students asked questions per minute.
So how many questions did students actually ask?
Actual number? 1.8
Observational studies of classrooms  found that students asked few questions, and even fewer in search of knowledge. (Dillon, J.T. and Graesser and Person)
As grade level increases, students ask fewer ‘on‐task attention’ questions that relate to the immediate task and draw attention to themselves. (Good, Slavings, Harel, & Emerson, 1987)
In 2014, 37% of students reported feeling “uncomfortable” asking questions in class. (Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations)

17. Questions in the Classroom
Higher Order Thinking Q’s
Also, few students spontaneously ask high‐quality thinking or cognitive questions (Carr, D.) with most questions being factual, procedural, or closed in nature.
Teachers ask an average of 400 questions a day, roughly 70,000 questions each year and most are at the basic recall level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

18. What Questions Should We Ask?
Include Bloom Questions at all Levels of Thinking. DON’T STOP AT UNDERSTANDING!
CRITICAL THINKING & DEEP LEARNING OCCUR HERE
Most school questions involve only the bottom two levels of questioning

19. Applying Bloom’s Levels of Questions
With the simplest of texts, the student can learn to ask a wide variety of questions, including challenging ones. Try it yourself with the nursery rhyme, Little Boy Blue.
Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
The sheep’s in the meadow,
and the cow’s in the corn,
Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
He’s under the haystack, fast asleep.
Higher-order thinking skills
The development of higher-order thinking skills is essential throughout all grades. In the early stages of reading development, higher-order thinking can be developed at the oral level through teacher read-alouds and shared reading. In the reading to learn stage, classroom teachers need to ask questions that challenge the children to move beyond what they recall of the text and on to what they understand through application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Children are no longer simply passive readers.
Write 6 questions for this text. One at each of level of Bloom’s.

20. Sentence Starters

21. Questions in the Classroom

22. Principle 3: Staying in the Asking Mode

23. Questions in the Classroom
Types of Questions
Clarifying are simple questions of fact. They clarify the dilemma and provide the nuts and bolts so that the participants can ask good probing questions and provide useful feedback.
Probing are intended to help the responder think more deeply about the issue at hand.

24. Questions in the Classroom
Stop Doing:
Asking too many closed questions
Asking too many questions with a “correct” answer
Moving on too quickly after a students’ response without asking a follow-up question
Stop offering hints
Stop reverting back to lecturing, showing, explaining, helping; even answering our own questions
Stop being Jerry!

25. Questions in the Classroom

26. Principle 4: The QRQ Pattern

27. Questions in the Classroom
“Can you tell me more?”
“Why do you say that?”
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
“I‘m wondering what might happen if….”
“How did you get that?”
“How would you explain that answer to your parents?”
“Why is that a better answer than the others?”
Probing Questions
Clarifying Questions

28. Questions in the Classroom
Select a Student
Ask a Question
Think Time
Listen to Response
Select another Student
Ask a Different Question
Etc.

29. Questions in the Classroom
Recitation is the most common context for classroom questioning. Typically, the teacher asks a question, calls on one student to respond, gives an evaluation of the rightness or wrongness of the answer, and asks another question.
This is also called I-R-E…Initiation, Response, Evaluation

30. Questions in the Classroom
Recitation
Student
Teacher
Student

31. Questions in the Classroom
According to research, discussion appears in classrooms less than 3 percent of the time. In discussion, the teacher typically poses one open-ended question. Students are challenged to think deeply, listen respectfully to one another, and develop new understandings.
The teacher question provides focus. Student thinking and interactions determine the depth and dimensions.

32. Questions in the Classroom
Ask a Question
Think Time #1
Select a Student
Listen to Response
Think Time # 2
Ask A Follow Up Question
Discussion

33. Questions in the Classroom
Recitation
Student
Teacher
Student

34. Principle 5: Keeping Positive Tone and Inquiry

35. Questions in the Classroom
Full Attention
Approachable Voice
Plural Forms
Exploratory Language
Non-Dichotomous Questions
Positive Presuppositions

36. Questions in the Classroom

37. Principle 6: Discourage Guessing

38. Questions in the Classroom
Encourage Students to Think before Speaking
Think-Write-Share; Turn and Talk; Think-Pair-Share
Encourage Students to Justify their Answers
Why might that answer be right?
Why might that answer be wrong?
Encourage Students to Support Answers with Details
How do you know the answer is correct?
How do you know the answer is incorrect?

39. Question in the Classroom
Use Statements instead of Questions
You can turn any question into a statement. Doing so makes the conversation more interesting. It often motivates the other person to share things they wouldn’t have otherwise.

40. Statements in the Classroom
Statements can be extremely effective as alternatives to questions. Studies have shown that pupil responses to teacher statements can be longer and more complex than responses to questions (Dillon, 1988).
Morgan and Saxton (1991) list, and describe in detail, the following useful types.
Declarative statement. This expresses a thought in response to a pupil’s; it may explore it or contain new information, e.g. in response to a pupil’s ‘X is the case’ a teacher may say ‘Y is the case.’
Reflective re-statement. A repetition or summary of the teacher’s understanding of what a pupil has said: ‘I think what you’re saying is…’.
Statement of mind. The teacher’s response to a pupil statement: ‘I’m not sure I understand/agree,’ ‘I feel the same about…’.

41. Principle 7: Overcoming the “I Don’t Know”

42. Questions in the Classroom
Respond with “If you did know, what would you say?” or
“What part do you know for sure?”
“Pretend you had a choice of answers: which one would you pick?”
“What are the possibilities?”
“If you did have an idea, what would it be?”
“What do you need to help you?”
No Opt Outs
Yet

43. Questions in the Classroom
Responding to questions matters. “So when teachers allow students to choose whether to participate or not they are actually making the achievement gap worse.”
—Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment, p. 81

44. Questions in the Classroom
REMEMBER:
An answer is an invitation
to stop thinking about something, to stop wondering.
Riemann, 2003
Value questions, not just answers.

45. Questions in the Classroom
What is one thing I need to be mindful of when questioning in my classroom?

46. Contact Information
Ellen Vorenkamp
MKJ Educational Consulting, LLC