Questions to Develop Thinking

8/14/2019 Questions to Develop Thinking

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Questioning SkillsQuestions to Develop Thinking



How it all started ...

• From the beginning of Term 1, children in Room 6 began taking

part in discussions about thinking. These discussions arose as wewere starting to explore ideas about New York. One of the

concerns that arose as we began to formulate questions, was

the need to develop questions that were useful for thinking.

Through discussion, children were able to identify that differentquestions may be useful for different things (such as quickly

gathering information, questions for quizzes etc), but it was the

questions that would get us thinking that would help us todevelop ideas.



Visually Representing Thinking

• Children began creating visual representations that showedlevels of thinking. After discussing the concept of a shallow

end / deep end swimming pool to represent shallow and deep

thinking, children came up with a wide range of images thathad numerous levels of thinking. While this particular discussionwas very useful, it occurred near the end of term, and therefore

children had not necessarily had enough time to grasp the

linking of questions to each of their stages as well as I wouldhave liked. An example of this was that children were able to

identify questions that would fit in the lower level thinking stages,but needed to have some higher level thinking questions as

examples, which would have given them something to work towards.





Showing Thinking

Thinking is like a pyramid. You startwith an idea, and then you start to

think more carefully about the idea. You keep thinking until you get to the

top of the pyramid. It is the best

thinking that you can do related toyour idea.



Self-assessment

•To assess their own questions and wonderings, we used theimages of a house at various stages of construction, developing

the ideas gained from the Solo Taxonomy concept. Most

children were able to assess themselves relatively well. Somechildren, however, believed that their questions were at a

higher stage although could not find questions in their thinking

books that showed evidence of this.



Developing Questions

• One issue that was evident while gathering this data, was thatmany children were able to develop their ideas orally to a

greater extent than those that they were writing down.

Children were encouraged to develop their questions and

wonderings from knowledge they already had. The question‘So what?’ was used to try and support children in developing

ideas, although some children failed to move past asking

themselves the question ‘So what?’



Looking Ahead

• It would be useful to develop a PowerPoint or Inspiration

document which uses hyperlinks to show the different levels of

thinking. The thought behind this is that children will be able to

see how an idea can be extended. It is something I would liketo have worked on this term, but felt there was not enough time

and understanding to have completed it to a high standard.



Room 6’s Ideas• Room 6’s Ideas about the stages of thinking…

Stage 1 / Novice

* Pre-Structural

* Misses the point / topic (does not show an understanding of the topic that they are questioning, wondering)

* There is no point to the questions, wonderings, or comments (the questions have no relevance to the topic, or are not at all useful for

thinking)

* Doesn’t hit the target

* Try again / try harder

Stage 2 / Apprentice* Uni or Multi Structural

* Starting to ask questions about the topic

* Beginning to think about the topic

* On the outer edge of the target

* Learning to pose relevant questions, wonderings

Stage 3 / Practitioner

* Relational

* Makes a statement and asks ‘So what…’

* Close to the Bull’s Eye

* Brilliant

* Shows knowledge of the topic

Stage 4 / Expert

* Expert Abstract

* Is always thinking about the ‘So what…’

* Detailed

* Fat thinking

* Shows a greater knowledge of the topic

* A star

* Hit the Bull’s Eye

Documents

Questions to Develop Thinking