The Cottesloe School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of young people NQT CPD Session Using Questions to Engage and Challenge 7 February

The Cottesloe School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of young people

NQT CPD SessionUsing Questions to Engage and Challenge

7 February 2012


Session Objective

To identify ways to improve questioning technique and to develop questions in order to:

- promote higher order thinking

- engage and challenge students

- impact upon student progress


Quotes

Socrates:

defined teaching as ‘the art of asking questions’.

Guy Claxton

‘Good learning starts with questions, not answers’.


The importance of questioning

Why is questioning so important?

Purpose of questions?


Make-over of a question

Generate a question that you have used in the last week in your classroom.


Research

Teachers ask 2 questions every minute, up to 400 a day, around 70,000 a year, 2-3 million in the course of a career.

Most questions are answered in between 1 and 3 seconds (Carole Dweck).

An average of 1 spontaneous question per lesson come from pupils – to do with procedure (Wragg)


Ofsted

Evaluation Schedule Grade Descriptors

‘Teachers have high expectations of all pupils’.

‘Teachers regularly listen astutely to, carefully observe and skilfully question groups of pupils and individuals during lessons in order to reshape tasks and explanations to improve learning’

‘Teaching consistently deepens pupils’ knowledge and understanding’


Unproductive/lower order questions

Recall Questions – answers already known to you/student.

E.g. ‘Where/when did the event happen?’ Comprehension questions Closed questions – can be answered ‘yes’, ‘no’ I can’ Rhetorical questions – answer within the question

E.g. ‘In what year was the War of 1812?’ Defensive questions – cause justification and resistance

E.g. ‘Why didn’t you complete your IL again?’ Agreement questions -seeking agreement with your opinion

E.g. ‘This is the best solution, isn’t it?’, ‘You all understand what you have got to do?’


Higher Order Questions

Bloom’s Taxonomy (1952) Hierarchy of skills in thinking:

- Children know before

- they can apply before

- they can evaluate



Explicit reference to higher order thinking skills

E.g. ‘Do you think this is the best alternative?’

becomes

‘Evaluate these alternatives.’



Plurals

E.g. ‘What ideas do you have?

‘What are some of your goals?



Tentativeness – might, maybe, take a risk

‘What might be some factors that would cause…?

‘In what other ways could you solve this problem?’



Empowering presuppositions – communicate high expectations

‘What personal learning or insights will you carry forward into future situations?’



Evaluation questions Analytical questions Synthesis questions


Extreme Question Make-over

Go back to question. Re-phrase to add rigour, challenge, high

expectations, encourage higher order skills-based thinking


From the beginning of lessons

Ask questions to prepare students’ mental and physical state for learning

Get them thinking!


Starters

What’s The Question?

Answer – In the park


Starters

ThunksA question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks

and helps you look at the world in a new way

If I lend you £100,000 does that make you a millionaire?

Does everything have an opposite?

If you want to fail and you succeed at failing, have you failed?

www.thunks.co.uk


Starters

What ifs…?

Rubbish bins gave you £1 for every sack of

rubbish?


Starters

Which is biggest, best, beautiful?


Starters

Would you rather…?

Have foil teeth

or

feather fingers?


Starters

5,3,1 most important?

Saw

Drill

Plane

Screwdriver

Hammer


Other strategies for asking questions

Mind map strategies you use in your classroom


Other strategies for asking questions

Deploy pause, prompt, probe routinely Give ‘think time’ Encourage students to elaborate and reflect so they can

demonstrate their thinking Use non-verbal cues to signal you want more Ask for evidence and reasoning behind an answer Ask another student to answer a question raised by a student ‘No hands’ to encourage participation of all Personalise/differentiate questions Give the answer and ask students what the question is Open up thinking/invite students to respond to others’ answers Use ‘phone a friend’, pair rehearsal, ‘ask the audience’ Ask learning questions, open questions Avoid gender bias


Reflection

Record and share 2 strategies/key learning points to take away from session and try in the classroom.

Session evaluation: WWW/EBI

Documents

The Cottesloe School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of young people NQT CPD Session Using Questions to Engage and Challenge 7 February