Questioning Techniques for the Inclusive Classroom

Has anyone done a study of what questions get asked in classrooms?

There is alot of research done as part of Assessment for Learning. Shirley Clarke Professor Black to name 2.

Good to hear from you Helena. Thank you for your response.

My favorite questions are open ended questions where the students can think further about why or how. Leading questions can point the students in the direction you would like them to go for the sake of the lesson working more as the facilitator guiding the children to get at answers more independently (exercising their minds) I found that they retain the information better once they have sorted out the answer on their own. Of course with you guidance you'll lead them to the correct direction and they to other possibilities.

Emily Sharon Karambu
RE:OPEN /CLOSED QUESTIONING.

I oftenly target open or closed questions sometimes to specific children as i know the pupils well.There are those who are shy and find it difficult to explain an open question in front of a whole class.I am refering to a primary class setting.I have found that the shy and less confident pupils tend to answer closed questions than open questions,however this does not mean that they should not be encouraged to answer open questions.Also confident pupils tend to answer open question with more detail regardless of the answer being right or wrong.I have encouraged pupils to explore and analyse any Literary text with open questions. As long as they are aware that there might not be a wrong or right answer, for instance when justifying something, for instance a characters action as long as they give evidence and support their answer from the text.The shy quiet pupil might answer open questions with detail probably if it is on a subject they like and enjoy.All in all both questioning techniques are excellent ways to apply depending on:the lesson objective, children/class as whole,topic and context.
  

So true. I suppose it would be at the discretion of the instructor the when and hows depending on the lesson.

Hi Emily,

Thank you for joining in the discussion.
Yes, they key is recognising the skills and abilities of your pupils and raising questions which are prepared in line with the learning objectives.


Maggie

With respect to open and closed questions in your research it is good to have both. e.g. survey and open text box for comments.
This is important to have both types of data so you can triangulate the results later to support and validate your conclusions.
yours
Anthony

Hi Jessica,

Good to hear your contributions to the discussion. Yes, open questions do provide pupils with an opportunity to develop their thinking skills. And of course we must remember that precious time we allow before gleaning answers.

No but I have done observations and training on questioning. I had eventually tried them in my classroom. They work well. I've gotten good results from my students

I find Learning Style Analysis quite interesting. It is a personal profile of a students learning style. The student is given questions of preferences and non-preferences in a form of questionnaire. For example, one section would be My preference on how I learn best. The student is to mark an Icon that indicate the most compatible to their style. One icon may mean step-by-step(sequential) learning and states " I like to finish one thing before starting another. After the questions are answered the teacher reviews it to get a better understanding of the child's learning style, personality, and need. Parents are too involved to learn more and discuss with their child. Both then discuss school, home and classroom expectations of the child taking in consideration the LSA profile. I find it very interesting and helpful in including children in their own learning. giving them ownership for their learning and achievement. The learning styles ananlysis usually happens during the beginning of the school term. for more information you may want to look at www.prashnigstyles.com

To start the discussion off, let me know if "no hands Up" works well for you? Does it stiffle pupils' eagerness to respond and take away the excitement from the lessons?


Maggie

I teach Music & Maths in an MLD Secondary school.

For Maths it's useful to have some energy generated by hands-up answering, whether or not you pick the youngsters who have thier hands up to give you their answers.

For Music I find one useful strategy is to have a 10 second rule sometimes - in other words, no hands up and no pupils asked for answers until 10 seconds after I have asked the question. There are obvious implications for the quality of responses as well as the range of pupils who will volunteer an opinion.

Yes. I see that to be useful.

Hi Clare,

Thank you for your comments. Yes, I think you have presented a good combination for building on quality of response with hands up, wait time and careful selection.

Maggie

Hands up by all means.. I prefer it as a teacher. I find that it pumps enthusiasm and yes no hands can present itself as stifling. Peers and social interaction can generate a good flow of energy and enthusiasm when the air is positive. Many young students are social and active learners who enjoy praise. I find it a good signal in determining how well the lesson is going and how many have a good understanding. Those who don't raise their hand allow me to focus to their direction and possibly reteach or review with them if needed. There are time I use flat sticks with the students names on them and pick randomly to ensure all children have been included in participation.

Hi there -
Another way of thinking about these issues may be a self-managed learning approach.
http://www.selfmanagedlearning.org/
What do you think?
- yours,
Dr Anthony 'Skip' Basiel

Hello Everyone,

Blooms Taxonomy classifies educational objectives into increasing levels of cognitive complexity to develop pupils as deep thinkers. Both questioning and appropriate activities can be used to get children to think deeply. Blooms classification in 1959 was:
 •Knowledge
 •Comprehension
 •Application
 •Analysis
 •Synthesis
 •Evaluation

 
Robert Fisher in “Teaching Thinking” (2003) suggests that certain types of questions can promote philosophical discussion and deep thinking with children. These questions will include such things as:
•What is a mind and how do you know you have one?
•What is strange or puzzling about thinking?
•What questions could you ask about the story? (Cinderella)
•What kind of character does this person have? (Jack and the Beanstalk)
•What are numbers?

This is one way of using questioning.

What other reasons are there for using questioning?

Maggie

I once heard about "reverse questioning" which is when given a text for comprehension ask the children to pretend to be teacher and set the questions.
In numeracy an easy settling in activity is to write "the answer is ... what is the question?" the children then have a minute to write possible questions. Be prepared to be flexible about the rest of the lesson as it can throw up some interesting concepts. When I wrote 28 a gifted child wrote the question as what is a perfect number? The rest of the lesson went on perfect numbers rather than as planned.

Blooms is my scholastic bible.
I should look into reading Robert Fisher "Teaching Thinking"
Thanks

There are a lot of good intrenet sites on Teacher Questionning. (Use google to search- I found these) eg Teacher Tools

http://teachertools.londong[…]?page=questioningTechniques

and
www.worldscibooks.com/etextbook/5140/5140_chap1.pdf

and
http://www.facultyfocus.com/[…]/

Thank you for your contributions this hotseat closed on 01/11/11