Questioning for Engagement

Success criteriaAll participants to develop at least one questioning

strategy that leads to learner engagement and progress in lessons

Starter On your mini whiteboards write down two

effective questions that you have used recently which promoted learner

engagement and progress

Why is questioning vital for an effective lesson?

List your reasons on your mini whiteboards

Why is questioning vital for an effective lesson?

• Engages and challenges pupils;• Checks on prior knowledge and understanding;• Stimulates recall, mobilises existing knowledge and experience in order to create new understanding and meaning;• Focuses pupils’ thinking on key concepts and issues;• Helps pupils to extend their thinking from the concrete and factual to the analytical and evaluative (Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy);• Leads pupils through a planned sequence which progressively establishes key understanding;• Promotes reasoning, problem solving, evaluation and the formulation of hypotheses; to promote pupils’ thinking about the way they have learned.• Creates a healthy learning tension where no pupil can be a passive learner.

When is questioning at its most effective?

• When it is planned, visually displayed and closely linked to the objectives of the lesson;

• Where the learning of basic skills has been enhanced by frequent questioning following the exposition of new content that has been broken down into bite-size pieces;

• Where each step has been followed by guided practice that provides opportunities for pupils to consolidate what they have learnt and which allows teachers to check understanding;

• Where closed questions have been used to check factual understanding and recall;

• Where open questions have predominated in lessons; • Where sequences of questions have been planned so that cognitive levels

increase as the questioning continues. This ensures that pupils have been encouraged to answer questions that demand increasingly higher-order thinking skills;

• Where the classroom climate has been such that pupils have felt secure enough to take risks, be tentative and make mistakes.

Effective Questioning Strategies

In your groups discuss and write down on the grid any effective questioning strategies

In your group plan a section of a lesson in your own subject that will use effective questioning strategies - other members help to do this• Outline how it fits within the full lesson by setting the

context of the lesson, including any previous content/skills that has been covered

• It can be a starter, mini plenary or plenary• Questioning must be used to facilitate/judge progress • Link to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy• Explain how you will know that the questioning has

worked (i.e. what evidence will you look for to show progress has taken place?)

• Be prepared to play a part in the presentation of each lesson section prepared in your group in the feedback

• Your lesson can be done electronically or written down and shown on the visualiser