Questioning
“There’s no such thing as a stupid question.” Really? Teachers often say this familiar line as a way to invite their students to ask whatever is on their mind – which, as we all know, can be a minefield. However, our focus in this On Practice is not on student questions, but on teacher-directed questions. As teachers, one of the most common ways to assess your class quickly and informally is through questions. So I ask, are some questions better than others? That is similar to asking, is some chocolate better than others? Those of you in Europe will certainly agree that some chocolate is far superior! If you are anything like me, however, if I am desperate enough, I will eat anychocolate. The same is true of teachers: if we are desperate enough, we will ask any question, even if the answer is boring, unclear, or rote.So what are the ingredients of a good question? A good question should:
- be open-ended (the answer is more than one word and can be stated many different ways);
- integrate prior knowledge;
- involve higher level thinking skills such as evaluating, critiquing, and comparing; and
- above all, make us THINK!

In order to develop and write better questions, I suggest keeping a good ol’ Bloom’s Taxonomy around while you are writing your lesson plan. These question starters are also helpful to print out and have on hand. For each lesson, write down two higher level questions to ask during the class. Don’t be discouraged if you still have to ask several lower-level questions before the students are prepared to answer the higher-level question. The goal is not to eliminate remembering, understanding, and applying, but to get beyond these levels of thinking. And like European chocolate, once you have had a taste of higher-level questions and answers, you might just become a bit more discerning about the questions you ask.
Graphic credit: http://icttoolkit.wikispaces.com/Blooms+and+ICT
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[…] [3] Ware, Christy. “Questioning.” OnPractice Blog. TeachBeyond, 2013. http://onpracticetb.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/152/ […]
[…] Employ strategic questioning techniques: When reviewing new vocabulary with your class, involve multiple students by asking follow up questions to student generated answers (for example, “Susy defined hypothesis as …, Grace, do you agree with this? Why/why not?”). In addition to involving more students in vocabulary instruction, this technique can help build students’ confidence in their knowledge and ability to decode words. (For more about strategic questioning, check out Christy Ware’s article here.) […]
[…] to elicit higher level thinking, check out Christy Ware’s article “Questioning” on the OnPractice […]
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