How to Improve your Questioning

How do Teachers Use Questions?

Teachers on average ask 200-300 questions per day. Of these 60% ask children to recall facts, and 20% are procedural. Often children are given less than 1 second response time, with questions directed to the whole class.

Bad Habits

All of us pick up bad habits when it comes to questioning. Being self aware can help us to improve and gain better outcomes for our children.

​Do any of these apply to you?

• ​I sometimes answer questions myself
• I ask too many questions at once
• I don't give the children very long to think
• I ask the same children to answer my questions most of the time
• ​I sometimes ask a difficult question too early
• I don't usually build on the children's answers
• I don't vary the type of question
• ​I ask the children to guess the word that's in my head (often comes up in literacy when improving text)
• ​I don't always correct wrong answers

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Sometimes being aware is enough to start breaking the habits, and strategies such as counting to five to give a child more thinking time can help. How will you tackle your questioning habits?

How to Encourage Whole Class Thinking

​Whole class response systems encourage all children to engage, and make it easier for you to spot the children that are switching off.

For example:

• ​Mini-white boards - Write the answer on the boards then hold the up to check.
• ABCD cards - For multiple choice questions
• ​Lolly Sticks - Write the children's names on the sticks, then pull one out to question.
• ​Systems such as Plickers, Kahoot and Socrative.

​By encouraging no hands up (unless you want to ask a question), you avoid having the same children participating in lessons.

​Quality answers can be encouraged by giving the children more time to think about their response. You can do this by increasing the time you wait for an answer, by using discussion partners, or by using a think-discuss-share approach. By allowing more time to think children are more likely to give more detailed responses, get fewer incorrect answers, and have improved confidence.

Child Generated Questions

​By using images as prompts children can come up with a bank of questions. We can also use images to assist in developing comprehension by getting the children to separate what they know and what they can infer from an image. For example we know the character is Ziggy, we can infer that he is looking for one of this friends.

• Who...?
• What...?
• When...?
• ​Where...?
• How...?
• ​Why...?

Create a space in the classroom that any unanswered question can be stuck to. The children can then see if they can find out the answer.

Ask Rich Questions

Rich questions cannot be answered straight away. Children may either have to complete smaller questions before being able to answer it or will have to conduct an investigation. This encourages children to use their experiences and builds problem solving skills. For example will a plant grow taller in a cupboard or on a window ledge.

Reflecting

At the end of a topic allow the children the opportunity to reflect on what they have learned, but also how they learned it. They can take this knowledge forward and draw on that to solve future problems.

​'Remember when we used a tally chart to work out the most popular type of pet, maybe we could use a tally to work out the most popular shoe size.'

References
​Hattie. J (2012) Visible Learning for Teachers, Routledge, D.Wiliam (2011) Embedded Formative Assesment research by G.Brown and Wragg (1993)