QUESTIONING

1. QUESTIONING Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” ---Albert Einstein

2. Learning Targets • Recognize the 7 Principles of Questioning • Explore each Principle for Further Learning • Connect Information to Current Practice

3. Why Study Questioning? • “We are the species whose trademark is to think and question.” (The Upright Thinkers: Pantheon, 2015) • Questioning helps students: • Be Intentional; Focus • Build a Thinking Process • Become more Engaged • Think Independently • Take Risks • Learn • Build on Prior Knowledge • Assess where Students Are

4. What does the research say about questioning? Research states that effective questioning strategies have a positive impact on overall student achievement. The outcome of a good education should be to know how to think, to extend the mind beyond the obvious, and to gain the ability to develop creative solutions to problems. Our thinking skills affect how well we can receive and process new information. “To question well is to teach well” (Wilen, 1991)

5. A “GOOD” Question…(according to a student) • Makes you think (will need to define thinking!) • Can have more than one answer. • Can be asked in different ways. • Can’t be answered just in the book or from a lecture. • Makes you think about life. • Makes you want to know more. • Makes you smarter!!!!

6. What do some experts say? You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. --Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist Won Nobel Prize for Literature 1988 The power to question is the basis of all human progress. --Indira Gandhi

7. One last expert…

8. 7 Principles of Questioning

9. Principle 1: Involuntary Questioning

10. Questions in the Classroom • The Research… • Teachers were asked how many questions they thought they asked students in a 30 minute period. • Teacher guesstimated 15 • Research showed they asked 50 • According to Steven Hastings, 2003 • Teachers ask 400 questions in a day • That is 70,000 a year • One-third of all teaching time is spent on asking questions

11. Questions in the Classroom • Wait Time • Research shows teachers expect students to answer questions in about 1 second. • Research also shows that most students need 7-9 seconds to answer a higher-order level question. • ELL students and Special Education Students may need longer!

12. Questions in the Classroom Answering a Question as a Process

13. Increased wait time…benefits… Students Teachers Questioning becomes more flexible and varied Decrease number of lower-level questions Increase quality, variety of open higher-order questions Ask more follow-up questions More accurately gauge where student learning is Ask questions that focus on next logical step of learning to deepen understanding • Responses increase in length and correctness • Fewer “I don’t Knows” • Increases Self-Efficacy • More students volunteer • More students challenge, expand responses of others • Offer increased # of alternative responses • Increase student-to-student questions • Increased test scores

14. Questions in the Classroom • Tools to Randomize Questioning • Pick Me!– An easy to use app for the iPod, iPad and iPhone that facilitates random student selection. Can be organized by class for convenience • Popsicle Sticks—Low tech but effective • Random Name/Word Picker– This tool allows the teacher to input a class list and facilitates random name picking • Smart Boards—Some Smart Boards have the capability to generate random name selection • Stick Pick—You can use Stick Pick as a random name generator, but the true power of Stick Pick is its ability to display “question stems” that are uniquely tied to each learner’s cognitive or English language ability level

15. Principle 2: Equalizing the Quality and Quantity

16. Questions in the Classroom • Teachers were asked how many questions they guesstimated their students asked in a 30 minute period • Teachers thought 10 • Chouinard (2007) found that when at home, speaking with a familiar adult, students asked 1-3 questions per minute. • So how many questions did students actually ask? • Actual number? 1.8 • Observational studies of classrooms  found that students asked few questions, and even fewer in search of knowledge. (Dillon, J.T. and Graesser and Person) • As grade level increases, students ask fewer ‘on‐task attention’ questions that relate to the immediate task and draw attention to themselves. (Good, Slavings, Harel, & Emerson, 1987) • In 2014, 37% of students reported feeling “uncomfortable” asking questions in class. (Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations)

17. Questions in the Classroom • Higher Order Thinking Q’s • Also, few students spontaneously ask high‐quality thinking or cognitive questions (Carr, D.) with most questions being factual, procedural, or closed in nature. • Teachers ask an average of 400 questions a day, roughly 70,000 questions each year and most are at the basic recall level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

18. What Questions Should We Ask? Include Bloom Questions at all Levels of Thinking. DON’T STOP AT UNDERSTANDING! CRITICAL THINKING & DEEP LEARNING OCCUR HERE Most school questions involve only the bottom two levels of questioning

19. Applying Bloom’s Levels of Questions With the simplest of texts, the student can learn to ask a wide variety of questions, including challenging ones. Try it yourself with the nursery rhyme, Little Boy Blue. Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn, The sheep’s in the meadow, and the cow’s in the corn, Where is the boy who looks after the sheep? He’s under the haystack, fast asleep. Write 6 questions for this text. One at each of level of Bloom’s.

20. Sentence Starters

21. Questions in the Classroom

22. Principle 3: Staying in the Asking Mode

23. Questions in the Classroom • Types of Questions • Clarifying are simple questions of fact. They clarify the dilemma and provide the nuts and bolts so that the participants can ask good probing questions and provide useful feedback. • Probing are intended to help the responder think more deeply about the issue at hand.

24. Questions in the Classroom • Stop Doing: • Asking too many closed questions • Asking too many questions with a “correct” answer • Moving on too quickly after a students’ response without asking a follow-up question • Stop offering hints • Stop reverting back to lecturing, showing, explaining, helping; even answering our own questions • Stop being Jerry!

25. Questions in the Classroom

26. Principle 4: The QRQ Pattern

27. Questions in the Classroom • “Can you tell me more?” • “Why do you say that?” • “How did you come to that conclusion?” • “I‘m wondering what might happen if….” • “How did you get that?” • “How would you explain that answer to your parents?” • “Why is that a better answer than the others?” • Probing Questions • Clarifying Questions

28. Questions in the Classroom

29. Questions in the Classroom • Recitation is the most common context for classroom questioning. Typically, the teacher asks a question, calls on one student to respond, gives an evaluation of the rightness or wrongness of the answer, and asks another question. • This is also called I-R-E…Initiation, Response, Evaluation

30. Questions in the Classroom • Recitation Student Teacher Student

31. Questions in the Classroom • According to research, discussion appears in classrooms less than 3 percent of the time. In discussion, the teacher typically poses one open-ended question. Students are challenged to think deeply, listen respectfully to one another, and develop new understandings. • The teacher question provides focus. Student thinking and interactions determine the depth and dimensions.

32. Questions in the Classroom

33. Questions in the Classroom • Recitation Student Teacher Student

34. Principle 5: Keeping Positive Tone and Inquiry

35. Questions in the Classroom • Full Attention • Approachable Voice • Plural Forms • Exploratory Language • Non-Dichotomous Questions • Positive Presuppositions

36. Questions in the Classroom

37. Principle 6: Discourage Guessing

38. Questions in the Classroom • Encourage Students to Think before Speaking • Think-Write-Share; Turn and Talk; Think-Pair-Share • Encourage Students to Justify their Answers • Why might that answer be right? • Why might that answer be wrong? • Encourage Students to Support Answers with Details • How do you know the answer is correct? • How do you know the answer is incorrect?

39. Question in the Classroom • Use Statements instead of Questions • You can turn any question into a statement. Doing so makes the conversation more interesting. It often motivates the other person to share things they wouldn’t have otherwise.

40. Statements in the Classroom • Statements can be extremely effective as alternatives to questions. Studies have shown that pupil responses to teacher statements can be longer and more complex than responses to questions (Dillon, 1988). • Morgan and Saxton (1991) list, and describe in detail, the following useful types. • Declarative statement. This expresses a thought in response to a pupil’s; it may explore it or contain new information, e.g. in response to a pupil’s ‘X is the case’ a teacher may say ‘Y is the case.’ • Reflective re-statement. A repetition or summary of the teacher’s understanding of what a pupil has said: ‘I think what you’re saying is…’. • Statement of mind. The teacher’s response to a pupil statement: ‘I’m not sure I understand/agree,’ ‘I feel the same about…’.

41. Principle 7: Overcoming the “I Don’t Know”

42. Questions in the Classroom • Respond with “If you did know, what would you say?” or • “What part do you know for sure?” • “Pretend you had a choice of answers: which one would you pick?” • “What are the possibilities?” • “If you did have an idea, what would it be?” • “What do you need to help you?” • No Opt Outs • Yet

43. Questions in the Classroom Responding to questions matters. “So when teachers allow students to choose whether to participate or not . . . they are actually making the achievement gap worse.” —Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment, p. 81

44. Questions in the Classroom An answer is an invitation to stop thinking about something, to stop wondering. Riemann, 2003 Value questions, not just answers. REMEMBER:

45. Questions in the Classroom • What is one thing I need to be mindful of when questioning in my classroom?

46. Contact Information • Ellen Vorenkamp • MKJ Educational Consulting, LLC • vorenke83@gmail.com • 810-923-0327