Questioning Toolkit Questioning is the door of knowledge.
Toolkit Contents What's In It? 1 Student Voice 2 Assessment 3 Differentiation 4 Planning 5 Techniques
Student Voice 'Poor questioning means that we are not asked to really think and the question is a closed question. Good questioning is where teachers make you think for a while about what and how to answer a question.' What do Westfield's students think about questioning? Daniel Y11 'Good questioning is when teachers ask different types of questions to help everyone in the class understand the topic.' Ruby Y11 'Bad questioning is when teachers don't give time for us to think and want an answer really quickly.' Katie Y8
A S S E S S M E N T
Assessment PE at Westfield utilise questioning for assessment. According to Rob Gardiner, "This is really important as when it is used simply it is a quick and easy way to check progress and set targets while reinforcing your learning objectives. Checking progress is vital and at a minimum should be done at the start, once during and the end of each lesson however, it should not take much time. Here is a quick example of how we do this in PE through questioning.
Assessment "Teachers should provide opportunities for pupils to make these enquiries, for example by encouraging pupils to ask challenging questions." Meyer et al. 2008
Assessment "What do you do? Could you share your good practice? See Contact Us page and let us know if you need help, support or have any ideas you would like to share.
D I F F E R E N T I A T I O N
Differentiation Example of differentiated questioning in PE.
Differentiation The previous examples are just some of the ways in which questioning is utilised in PE. When Rob Gardiner was asked about these he said; "I find it helps to plan for effective questioning within planning. I plan differentiated questions for lessons and by looking at class data it is easy to see who to target with different levels of questioning. This is also good for challenging and supporting pupils in class as you have a bank of questions you can go to when needed. I never stick to just the questions on the sheet and I feel it is important to grab opportunities to question pupils in order to promote discussion, support and challenge as well as being constant reminders of progress and levels/grades"
PL AN N I NG
Planning This blank spreadsheet can be used to plan questions for a given class. The class register can be copied and pasted from an exported SIMs marksheet or class register. Then you can split your class up into L/M/HAPS. The bottom section allows for planning of questions aimed at appropriately challenging the selected group. Questions can be built upon using Blooms from a LAP to a HAP response.
T E CH N I QU ES
Techniques Open and Closed Questions Closed questions lead students to answers. They can be anmswered in very few ways usually 'yes' or 'no'. Open questions are questions which cannot be answered with just 'yes' or 'no'. Many of them begin with 'wh': why, where, who etc. Open questions can be compared to closed questions, which need only yes or no answers. See the Humanities questioning wall for a structured strategy for this.
Techniques Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce! (PPPB) Pose a question, or series of questions, to the students. Pause and let the students think about the question. Wait time is another key to good questioning. A minimum of 3 seconds is suggested to allow students to absorb the information. Pounce on a student (not literally!). Select a student to answer the question question. Bounce the question on to another student. This can be done by asking a more sophisticated question, linked to blooms (increasing in difficulty).
Techniques High and Low order questions (link to PPPB.) Low order questions still require a minimum of 3 seconds wait time to be effective. This style of question would be your initial "Pose". Depending on ability, you may ask several low order questions in the subsequent "Bounces". High order questions require a minimum of 10 seconds wait time. This is where you would like your "bounces" to end up. Building upon answer so that students are able to answer higher order questions.
Techniques Can encourage differentiation. Important assessment tool. Can reduce the feeling of intimidation. Keeps passive learners engaged. Provides greater opportunity for AFL. Stops students putting their hand up before they have thought about the question. No Hands Up Policy Having a no hands up policy can have the above postive impacts. Implementing the policy can be difficult. If you would like further information, use the Contact Us page for advice
Techniques 'Wait' or 'thinking' time needs to be built into questioning strategies so that there are opportunities for students to develop their answers. Recent research in secondary classrooms found that with practice teachers could increase their wait time to around 3 5 seconds. Black et al (2003) found that this had important consequences because : 1: Longer answers were given than previously. 2: More students were choosing to answer. 3: Fewer students refused to answer. 4: Students commented on or added to the answers of other students. 5: More alternative explanations or examples were offered.
Techniques As the name of the hinge point question indicates, it is a question with answers which can take the lesson in at least two different directions. The directions of the lesson are therefore dependent upon the teachers assessment of the students understanding. For a direction to be determined, a hinge point question must be based on a concept in a lesson that is important for students to understand before the teacher moves on in the lesson. By assessing for this purpose, a teacher can make a striking impact on learning by delivering tailored teaching to each individual student.
Contact Us For further information... Adam Russell: arussell@westfield-admin.co.uk Rob Gardiner: rgardiner@westfield-admin.co.uk Oliver Robinson: orobinson@westfield-admin.co.uk Please feel free to use any of the discussed techniques and let us know how you get on.