Lesson 1: What constitutes an effective question?
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Objective
Participants will determine the characteristics of an effective question.
Introduction
Questions are an integral part of the interactions between teachers and students. In fact, it has been estimated that teachers ask upwards of 400 questions a day, which is about two million over the course of an average career! So why are teachers asking these questions, and how can they optimize their asking of questions to lead to the best learning for their students? What can teachers do to not only get more students to respond to their questions, but also to get students to respond with answers that lead to deeper understandings? What if it was as easy as changing the wording of a question or asking the question in a different manner?
In this first lesson of the mini course, participants will focus specifically on what some common reasons for asking questions are and how to design questions the most effectively to accomplish these goals. Design in this lesson will only refer to the wording of the question, particularly whether the wording elicits higher or lower order responses from students. Participants will be asked to consider the reasons why they might ask questions in the classroom and how they can word questions to elicit high level responses. They will make connections between reasons why teachers ask questions and how to word a question for that specific purpose.
K-W-L Pre-Assessment
Before you begin reviewing the content in Lesson 1, please make additions to the K-W-L chart. You should add a few comments describing what you think are some strategies for questioning that would deepen student thinking in the "K" section of the chart. You can then brainstorm a few questions you have about effective questioning and type them in the "W" section of the chart, indicating what you want to know.
Warm Up
- Mrs. Walters is a well-loved high school chemistry teacher who has been teaching in her district for ten years. She prides herself on her use of many questions throughout her lessons. Most of her questions start with the phrase "who can tell me..." and these questions focus on recalling pieces of content. Other questions ask her students to make connections between various pieces of content or to make predictions. During lab, she walks between students performing an experiment and asks them "How are your results?", to which most students simply repeat back their results. She feels like she could be asking questions in a different way in her classroom to have her student think more deeply, but she is unsure about how to change her practices.
In your Journalate, answer the following questions considering Mrs. Walters' classroom and your own.
- Are Mrs. Walters' questions similar to your own? Why or why not?
- In your opinion, what aspects of these are successful for student learning? What aspects are unsuccessful?
Investigation
As you access the links below, please take notes in your Journalate journal. The ideas and prompts to consider during your investigation should guide your note-taking.
1. Read the following article on using effective questions. Pay particular attention to the sections titled "What are effective questions?" and "How can you design effective questions?". Consider how your understanding of an effective question compares or contrasts with the ideas presented in the article.
2. Read the following article on higher order thinking skills and how certain questioning structures complement each skill. As you read, pay particular attention to the example questions under each skill. Also, consider which types of critical thinking skills are the most relevant to your classroom, and how you could write questions that utilize the question stems provided to accomplish these goals.
3. Watch the following video of an interview with Dr. AnneMarie Palincsar where she discusses the importance of developing higher-order questions to engage students in deep thinking. As you watch, pay particular attention to one of her examples from a content area that is most relevant for you. Consider how using higher order questions and activities benefitted students' learning in that particular example.
Reflection
- After reviewing the previous links, describe why a higher order question can elicit deeper thinking than a lower order question. You can record your response followed by your name in the "L" section of the K-W-L chart. In addition, if you can answer any questions from the "W" section, please record these answers in the "L" section. If any new questions emerged after completing the "Investigation" portion of Lesson 1, you can also add them to the "W" section.
- To reflect on this lesson with your peers, you should go to this website (https://todaysmeet.com/EffectiveQuestioningLesson1) and enter your understanding of the characteristics of an effectively worded question.
Go on to Lesson 2: How can you implement an effective question?
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