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Questioning Strategies !

After a lovely week back in the classroom, I still feel there is so much to be said about the idea of questioning strategies. I know that in class we really didn't get to talk about them too much, but this was something super important that I personally know I can use some practice with.

I know that finding the right way to ask a question is important. Obviously there are reasons for asking each question at each cognitive level. But how do you know which one to use and when to use them?! 

So, after searching for a bit, I found this dope website with quite a bit to say about all this. It's called "Questioning Strategies" it is an article that was put out by Illinois CITL, and offers tons of answers for our questions about questions. This particular article focuses a lot on the ideas of Bloom's Taxonomy that we discuss all the time in class. Questions should always be reaching for different levels of cognitive development, and these questions should vary throughout the different lessons and classes. 

My favorite part of this article is the fact that it has this neat little chart that explains some different questions and how students may see them:


Lower-level                               Higher-level
Closed
What are the stages of cell division?
Given the medical data before you, would you say this patient is intoxicated or suffering from a diabetic reaction?
Open
What is an example of an adjective?
What are some ways we might solve the energy crisis?
The chart won't copy over correctly, but you get the idea. These are the kinds of questions that we have the options of asking our students. None is more important than the other, and they are all useful at some level of learning. 

The other half of this article deals with handling the students responses to your questions. This is something else we have really been talking about in class. It's not easy to do, but it's worth really working towards. 

My main take-away from this section is that there are a few different ways that you can respond to a students response to a question.

  1. Reinforcement - Not always for saying just "great job" but this can really be useful for thanking the student for the amount they are participating. The answer does not always have to be correct even, but a little reinforcement goes a long way. 
  2. Probing - Something that I really need to work on. Being able to take a students response and push it further, get at some deeper meaning that a student may have going on in their heads. Not always the surface level stuff.
  3. Adjustment - Not everything that a student says is going to be correct or on topic. But usually, something they say is worth thinking about. Grabbing that little piece of correctness and presenting it back to the class, or pushing a bit further can open up a lot of bigger more productive conversations. 
This article has a lot of things to offer as far as further strategies in questioning goes, so everyone should absolutely give it a quick glance. This is my last pot for a few weeks, because we will be back in the classrooms. Middle School, here I come!

Comments

  1. kelliOctober 28, 2018 at 11:38 AM

    I love how you are aware of areas in teaching that you are still working on. I, too, find myself seeking to learn more and practice pushing students to think deeper on a given topic. I also love the adjustment piece of this strategy. Many times even if students give a "wrong" answer, they are on the right track or there is a reason why they are thinking the way they are. As teachers it is our job to acknowledge that student for sharing, pointing out many others are probably thinking the same way and why they may have thought that, but steering the wheel to help students understand the "correct" answer, or the direction you want the conversation to go in. Thanks for sharing the link to the site also!

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