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Professional Resource for Teachers

Asking Questions:Using Questioning as anEffective Instructional

Strategy

Learning comes from thinking, so how

do you cause thinking using good ques-

tioning strategies?

The challenge with traditional ap-

proaches to questioning in class is that

the teacher will ask a question and some

students will think about the answer

and put up their hands. When the teach-

er calls upon one student to answer the

question the rest of the class stops think-

ing. How can we make sure all the stu-

dents do the thinking that comes with

questioning?

One approach to get every student

thinking is to implement a no hands

policy. With this strategy the teacher

poses the question and then asks stu-

dents to turn to a partner and talk about

possible answers. The partner talk en-

gages both students to think about the

issue, and students get to test their an-

swers with a peer before venturing to

share it with a class.

Learning Comesfrom Thinking WRDSB

Dont Evaluate Answers

That Stops the Thinking

Often, when a student answers a question, a

teacher will say, good answer. This type of re-

sponse from a teacher causes all other students,

who may have had different answers, to endtheir participation: If that student was told her

answer is good then, since my answer is differ-

ent, Ill not share it.

When students provide answers, especially when

pairs of students begin to share the results from

their no-hands-up discussion, teachers should

only acknowledge their responses with, thanks

for sharing.

To encourage further thinking the teacher

should now turn to the other students and ask,

who agrees and who disagrees? This approach

encourages thinking because now students see

that any response is still acceptable and they will

continue to think about the issue.

Learning occurs when

thinking occurs.Teachers need to

using Question-

ing Strategies to

get the most thinking out

of their students.

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Questions in the 3

part Lesson*

Using questions within the 3-part lesson:

Minds OnQuestions

are engaging to get students hooked

serve as assessment forlearning opportu-

nities

could be open questions, building on what

students already know

Action!

Questions are more substantive and activate a prob-

lem/task/exploration that requires

students to confront the new knowledge

that is the goal of the lesson

may require scaffolding questions that are

more specific but still as open as possible

could be open questions or parallel tasks

Consolidation

Questions are planned first, i.e., beginning with the

end in mind

focus on connecting to the Big Idea for the

lesson could be open questions, focusing

on assessing student understanding of the

goal for the lesson

This Posing Powerful Questions Template is an adaptation of the TIPS Three-Part Lesson Template with a focus on rich questions for

each part of the lesson. Beginning with the end in mind, the lesson goal is filtered through a curriculum expectation connected to the

Big Idea and a Consolidating Question is developed to determine students understanding of the lesson goal. (Assessment for a nd as

Learning)

Lesson Title: Grade/Program:

Goals(s) for a Specific Lesson

Curriculum Expectations

Big Idea(s) Addressed by the Expectations

Minds OnSample Question(s):

Action!Sample Question(s):

Scaffolding Questions:(posed to individuals as needed)

Consolidate/DebriefSample Question(s):

Posing Powerful Questions*

*adapted from: http://www.edugains.ca/resources/LearningMaterials/ContinuumConnection/BigIdeasQuestioning_ProportionalReasoning.pdf