Surface vs Deep

Questioning

PreparEDApril 23rd 2015

Intentions of today’s session

• To have you explore the why and what of questioning with an aim to deepen your understanding and application

• To use the skills and thinking you want to develop in students as a spark for questioning

• To begin to identify possible questioning strategies, practices and habits that teachers can use to develop student skills and thinking

What YOUR job is today

Be open, honest and participate

As the range of viewpoints and ideas are presented

Try them on, Think about them, Discuss them & Learn what you Learn!

Today’s workshop

Questioning – why is it important?

Identifying the Intended Goals

Strategies and Resources Exploration

Turn and Talk and then Sharing

1. Why is questioning important in your classrooms?

2. What is the purpose of questioning?

3. What are some of the outcomes you are trying to achieve through questioning?

The Real Power of Questions – Ron Richhardt

Each person will read the Ron Richhardt article with the following in mind (take notes on the template provided)

Connections: What connections do you draw between the article and your own practice?

Concepts: What key concepts or ideas do you think are important or worth holding on to from the article

Changes: What changes in attitudes, thinking, or action are suggested by the article?

The Real Power of Questions – Ron Richhardt

After around 10 minutes you will have an opportunity to share

Use the notes you took on the 3C’s to share what came up for you from reading the article

Why Ask Questions?

1. To model intellectual engagement with ideas

2. To promote and nurture ongoing inquiry

3. To support students in constructing understanding

4. To help students clarify their own thinking to themselves and others

What is a question?

“A question is any sentence which has an interrogative form or function. In classroom settings, teacher questions are defined as instructional cues or stimuli that convey to students the content elements to be learned and directions for what they are to do and how they are to do it”

Kathleen Cotton – Classroom Questioning

Inquiry

So what is the difference between surface questions and deep questions?

We need to give kids snorkels not water-skis

Ben Johnson

Different Levels of Questioning

The point is ….

The teacher – and students – can ask questions that elicit thinking at different depths

Questioning can be used to spur depthof thinking

It also can be used to uncover the currentdepth of thinking

In your classroom…..

• How many questions do you think you ask in a 30-minute period?

• How many questions would be desirable?

• How many questions do your students ask?

• How many student questions would be ideal?

How many questions do we ask? ThinkPair

Share

Scary evidence….

On the average, during classroom interactions approximately 60 percent of the questions asked are

lower cognitive questions, 20 percent are higher cognitive questions, and 20 percent are procedural

Therefore, only 20 percent of the questions we ask students involve intellectual engagement with learning,

inquiry, or developing understanding

What research shows

General Findings (Cotton)

1. Instruction which includes posing questions during lessons is more effective in producing achievement gains than instruction carried out without questioning students.

2. Oral questions posed during classroom sessions are more effective in fostering learning than are written questions.

3. Asking questions frequently during class discussions is positively related to learning facts.

4. Increasing the frequency of classroom questions does not enhance the learning of more complex material.

Importance of Higher Order Questions (Cotton)

1. Lower cognitive questions are more effective when the teacher’s purpose is to impart factual knowledge and assist students in committing this knowledge to memory

2. In most classes, a combination of higher and lower cognitive questions is superior to exclusive use of one or the other

3. Simply asking higher cognitive questions does not necessarily lead students to produce higher cognitive responses.

4. Increasing the use of higher cognitive questions (to considerably above the 20 percent incidence noted in most classes) produces superior learning gains for students

5. Teaching students to draw inferences and giving them practice in doing so result in higher cognitive responses and greater learning gains.

Bottom line …

To accomplish the goals of questioning

• We need to be clear about and articulate the learning goals we are trying to achieve with students

• We need to plan the lower order and higher order questions we intend to ask in a class

• We need to be aware of the frequency we ask questions (and the students ask each other)

• We need to provide a framework for the questions students ask

Example – Austin’s Butterfly

Today’s workshop

Questioning – why is it important?

Identifying the Intended Goals

Strategies and Resources Exploration

Activity Part I

With a partner, for an upcoming lesson, identify up to 4 learning goals (linked to the Four Ron Richhardt goals of questioning) for your students?

Be as specific as possible

Why Ask Questions?

1. To model intellectual engagement with ideas

2. To promote and nurture ongoing inquiry

3. To support students in constructing understanding

4. To help students clarify their own thinking to themselves and others

Example Depth of Questioning Skills

F 1 2 3 4 5

Questioning

Relevancy

Question or not

Open or Closed

Fat or Thin

Ability to respond to questions

Vocabulary

 

Can make comments with teacher prompting

Is able to form a question but sometimes may not be relevant

 

Makes relevant comments with teacher prompting

 

Asks relevant questions

 

Uses questions to get more information

 

Makes relevant comments and concrete suggestions

Asks open-ended questions

 

Uses prior knowledge in asking a new question

 

Uses vocabulary of topic

 

Uses questions to clarify understanding

 

 

 

Asks fat questions

 

Asks questions that expand the conversation

 

Critical and Creative Thinking Unpacking

Activity Part II

Using the Classroom Questions Typology Document and Bloom’s Taxonomy Questions Stems …

Design a range of lower order cognitive and higher order cognitive questions you could ask to achieve each learning goal

Use the template provided

Point of this …

You can’t expect to develop students to gain particular knowledge or develop a particular skill if you haven’t clearly articulated the learning goals and designed possible questions you could ask

Today’s workshop

Questioning – why is it important?

Identifying the Intended Goals

Strategies and Resources Exploration

Strategies in the Classroom

• You have identified the learning goals you want to achieve

• You have identified a potential range of lower order and higher order questions

• Next Step is … what strategies are you going to use to enact your planning / thinking in your classroom

Wait Time 1: the pause after asking a question, giving students time to think about their answer

Wait Time 2: the pause after a student answers a question - gives them time to elaborate and be engaged

The typical length of Wait Times 1 and 2 is less than or equal to 1 second BUT if teachers can extend their wait times to 3 or more seconds, then...

Wait Time – the ‘miracle’ pause….

Wait Time – the ‘miracle’ pause….

What happens to STUDENTS when Wait Time is increased?

The variety of students participating increases.

The length of student responses increases.

There is a decrease in ‘I don’t know’ responses.

The number, length and appropriateness of responses by

students increases

Student to student exchanges increase (they listen to each other

more)

More inferences are supported by evidence and logical argument.

The increase of speculative thinking increases.

Student confidence increases.

Decreases in student interruptions Improvements in student retention

Increases in the amount and quality of evidence students offer to support

their inferences

Achievement on assessment measures improves.

Wait Time – the ‘miracle’ pause….

What happens to TEACHERS when Wait Time is increased?

Questioning strategies became more flexible and varied

- the kind of questions asked by teachers change (more advanced / higher order / divergent questions)

The quantity of questions asked decreased, while the quality and variety of questions increased.

Expectations for the performance of certain students seem to improve

There is greater continuity in the development of discussion.

There is greater flexibility of teacher responses, with teachers listening

more and engaging students in more discussions.

Increases in the number of higher cognitive questions asked by

teachers.

A Questioning Friendly Classroom

How do you do

this already?

A Questioning Friendly Classroom

No Opt Out – its not OK to not try

A sequence that begins with a

student unable to answer a question should end with

the student answering that

question as often as possible.

Activity Part III: Exploration of strategies

We have created the opportunity for you to learn and contribute to one another in enacting effective questioning in your classes

Made a range of resources / strategies

available … look through these with your partner and discuss and choose what approaches you

could use to achieve the learning goals you

identified

Sharing about what you learnt

What did you learn from today’s session that you will enact in your classes?

Sustaining practice

Teacher learning takes time

Practice is required to put new knowledge to work, to make it meaningful and accessible when you need it

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