Effective Questioning

Mary-Anne Murphy

Objectives for the dayCourse Content:• To determine why questioning is important• To link questioning with the New Curriculum• To determine the profiles of an effective question and

an effective questioner • To understand where questioning fits into an Inquiry

model• To understand the 3C’s of questioning• To share strategies that assist in question

development.• To start to plan for questioning within a unit of

learning we wish to use.

Format for the day:Session 1:

Determine why questioning is importantLink questioning with the New Curriculum

Session 2:Teachers and questioning

Session 3:Students as questioners

Session 4:Planning for questioning

Meet n Greet

Your mission...Using the following question starters, find out 7 things about a person at your table that you do not already know.

Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? Which?Now share that information with another person

at your table.

Session 1

• Determine why questioning is important• Link questioning with the New Curriculum

“ If we hope to see inventive thought infused with critical judgment,

questions and questioning must become a priority of schooling and

must gain recognition as a supremely important technology”.

 

Jamie McKenzie

Why do we Why do we ask questions?ask questions?

Beside each reason, indicate what Key Competency is being developed: TRUMP

Thinking

Relating to others

Using language, symbols and texts

Managing Self

Participation

Questioning and the Key Competencies

Managing Self:  To make informed choices requires a range of skills amongst which questioning plays a major role.

Relating to Others:  Questioning is a central component of "interacting effectively with a diverse range of people" and being "open to new learning"

Participating and Contributing: When we work "to make connections to others" and strive to "participate and contribute actively in new roles" questioning is going to be one of the major skills we will be utilising.

 Thinking: De Bono states that 'questioning is the engine-house of thinking‘. Jamie McKenzie sees questioning as “an extremely important technology”.

Using Language, Symbols, and Texts: This competency covers the basics of communication including textual, graphical and mathematical literacies. Within it questioning again will play a major role as students make "meaning of the codes in which knowledge is expressed", "discover, express, and explore the relationships to be found in quantities, space, and data".

Active Listening/Reflective Questioning

“Effective questioning brings insight, which fuels curiosity, which cultivates wisdom”

Chip Bell

“If speaking is silver, then listening is gold”

Turkish Proverb

Reflective Exercise

1. Place your name in the centre of a piece of paper. Circle it.

2. In the next outer circle write your beliefs about learning.

3. Outside this circle write names of people who have influenced your ideas about learning.

Active ListeningActive listening is one of the most important of the coaching skills and is one of the first requirements of effective dialogue (Isaacs, 1999). To listen for even 3 or 4 minutes without interrupting and without sharing one’s own stories or giving advice is something that leaders often find difficult. Within the coaching relationship, active listening gives each leader, in turn, the freedom to articulate their practice, to justify why they are doing what they are doing, and to reflect on the impact they believe their actions will have.

Robertson, J. (2005) Coaching Leadership p. 110

Active ListeningTo be active listeners coaches

should:•Give the speaker full attention;

•Encourage that person to keep talking;

•Not break into conversation by sharing “war stories” or their own experience;

•Not give advice;

•Take careful note of what is said, writing if necessary;

•Not ask questions;

•Focus in particular on what is said about leadership (teaching/learning) process;

•Listen as well for what is not said and what is important to the speaker.

Three Level ThinkingReflective Questioning

Robertson, J. (2005)3 storey thinking

Costa, A.& Kallick, B. (2002)

Level 1: designed to clarify thinking about events, situations, actions and feelings

Level 1: fact collectors, data gathering cognitive operations.

Level 2: used to clarify purpose reasons and intended consequences

Level 2: processing-compare, reason, generalise, making sense and meaning of information

Level 3: move leaders into exploring the basis or outcomes of their actions.

Level 3: speculate, imagine, idealise, predict, elaborate and apply concepts in new and hypothetical situations

ReflectionFor this process to work well...

What do we need to knowWhat do we need to doWho do we need to be

Reflection

In what ways could you use this process

within your own or others learning?

Session 2: Teachers and questioning

Need a new quote here

Students

Students

Teachers

Questioning

What strategies do you currently employ that

facilitate effective questioning from your

students?

“How do we walk on Hot Sand?”

Key points and actions on each aspect of the reading... (pairs)

1. Prepare key questions to ask

2. Ask fewer and better questions

3. Use appropriate language and content

4. Distribute questions around the class

5. Thinking time and pauses between questions

6. Use questions to make progressive cognitive demands

7. Prompt pupils, give clues

8. Use pupils’ responses, even incorrect ones

9. Encourage pupils to ask questions

10. Listen and acknowledge pupils’ responses positively

What does research say?

‘How do they walk on hot sand?’

Using questions to help pupils learn

(jigsaw to become experts and share information)

Actions

What implications does this have for

your practice?

(Reflection and talk for action!)

Questioning

What do you need to know and do to be an effective questioner?

(Model co-construction process using T chart)

Session 3:Students as Questioners

“Once you have learned how to ask relevant and appropriate questions, you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know”.

Neil Postman

Teaching as a subversive activity

Teacher:Student Questioning

Teacher as Questioner

Student as Questioner

How might you like this to look? Discuss.

So what are the attributes of an

“Effective Questioner?”

Complete the role on wall outline.

What are the attributes of an effective questioner?• Is aware of a need for information.

• Able to clarify what information is needed.

• Has a base set of vocabulary that is relevant to the

context or issue.

• Is able to ask a range of relevant questions.

• Takes that range of relevant questions to a range of

appropriate resources.

• Persists in their search for the answer/s.

• Edits their questions as necessary

http://ictnz.com/Questioningskills.htm

What makes a “good” question?

Brainstorm in pairs

Questioning Rubric for creating and evaluating “Effective Questions”

Trevor Bond, 2008

Stage Question Type

7 Used multiple question words to create a probing question when interviewing an “expert”.

6 Used relevant synonyms to edit questions.

5 Used the seven servants and relevant key words and phrases to create questions. (Which, could, might, can, will)

4 Used the seven servants to write/ask open thick questions (who, when, what, where, how, which, why)

3 Asked a relevant yes/no/maybe question. Closed / Open, thin (is, can, does, could, may)

2 Any non-relevant question (does not contain contextual key words, or phrases)

1 Created statements, rather than questions

Without strong questioning skills, you are just a passenger on someone else’s bus tour. You may be on the highway, but someone is doing the

driving.Jamie Mc Kenzie

But how do we get our students there???

T TL LT LDemonstration Shared Guided Independent

Demonstration Practice Practice

Strategies that facilitate student questioning...

Lets put them into a context...

Questioning within an Inquiry model

Mark Treadwell. “Whatever Next?” 2009

The 3 C’s of question creation with students…

1. Catch… their attention

2. Cluster… their own and new vocabulary

3. Construct… questions

• Brainstorm key words or phrases that arise during or after your viewing of the following video extract. Write each word on a separate stick-it.

Watch the video now…

• In groups of 3-4, negotiate Word Clusters.Write a title for each cluster on a stick-it.

Using a word document thesaurus to extend vocabulary

Trevor Bond, 2008.

Question MatrixIs Did Can Would Will Might

Who

What

Where

When

How

Why

Type of question Type of thinking Type of response Example

Closed Convergent Single answer or limited number of answers

Eg: Yes/No

(Factual answers)

How old are you?

What is 6 X 6?

How did you travel to school?

How high is Mt Cook?

Open Divergent Many possible answers. Not only one correct answer.

(Creative and Critical thinking)

How would the story be different if it was set in the future?

Skinny Simple response Little explanation required. Requires recall, knowledge, comprehension

What is the name our Prime Minister?

Fat Complex response Requires a degree of explanation and interpretation.

What would you do to conserve the wetlands?

Questioning types and examplesSource: L. Watchcorn & Gail Cochrane, NZNL service.

Creating rich questions

Share your questions with a group of 4.

Now sort your questions into “Open” and “Closed”.

Next sort your open questions into “Fat” or “Skinny” questions

What did you notice about your questions?

Thin questions

Thick questions

Question hierarchy

Anderson’s revised taxonomy.

Turning a question into a Learning Intention…

Question: How might the one child rule affect the female population?

Learning Intention: To analyse the current impacts of the one-child rule on females, and evaluate how it might affect them in the future.

Now try this with one of your question/s

Blooms demonstration verbsKnowledge

Outcomes deal with the ability to recognize, recall and remember

Comprehension

Outcomes involve the ability to manipulate previously learned material.

Application

Outcomes deal with the ability to apply rules, principles, and concepts to new situations.

Analysis

Outcomes involve separating, revealing structure, causes and supporting or refuting positions.

Synthesis

Outcomes relate to creative thinking, production of original works, classifying or planning.

Evaluation

Outcomes ask students to make and support reasoned judgements.

Describe

Define

Discover

Identify

Label

List

Locate

Match

Name

Observe

Outline

Recall

Recognize

Reproduce

Select

State

Tell

Uncover

Clarify Translate

Conclude

Connect

Convert

Describe

Distinguish

Explain

Express

Generalize

Give examples

Illustrate

Interpret

Match

Paraphrase

Restate

Rewrite

Select

Show

Apply

Calculate

Code

Collect

Compute

Construct

Demonstrate

Discover

Manipulate

Model

Operate

Order

Organize

Relate

Report

Show

Categorize

Classify

Compare

Contrast

Deduce

Determine

Dissect

Distinguish

Divide

Isolate

Order

Reduce

Relate

Role Play

Separate

Simplify

Survey

Add to

Alter Vary

Compose

Create

Design

Dramatize

Estimate

Extend

Hypothesise

Infer

Invent

Predict

Reconstruct

Rename

Reorganise

Revise

Substitute

Translate

Assess

Conclude

Critique

Debate

Decide

Defend

Detect

Determine

Editorialize

Evaluate

Interpret

Judge

Justify

Recommend

solve

                                                       

Figure 3: Classifying objectives with the revised taxonomy table

http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/bloomrev/

Other questioning tools...

Take a look at the wiki also.

Question typologyJamie McKenzie’s – questioning toolkit

Essential SubsidiaryElaborating TellingClarification PlanningHypothetical OrganisingStrategic Sifting & SortingProbing InventiveUnanswerable IrrelevantProvocative DivergentIrreverent

De Bono’s Thinking Hats

• The White Hat is cold, neutral, and objective. Take time to look at the facts and figures.

• The Red Hat represents anger (seeing red). Take time to listen to your emotions, your intuition. The Black Hat is gloomy and negative. Take time to look at why this will fail.

• The Yellow Hat is sunny and positive. Take time to be hopeful and optimistic.

• The Green Hat is grass, fertile and growing. Take time to be creative and cultivate new ideas.

• The Blue Hat is the colour of the sky, high above us all. Take time to look from a higher and wider perspective to see whether you are addressing the right issue.

Socratic Questioning

• Clarification

• Assumptions

• Reason & Evidence

• Viewpoints or Perspectives

• Implications & Consequences

• Questions about Questions

Session 4:Planning for questioning

Key learnings/points

• Plan for questioning

• There is a time for teaching and a time for facilitation.

• Consider the different types of questions.

• Use the question within the Formative assessment cycle.

• Use a range of strategies to promote student questioning.