The Art Of Questioning

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The Art Of Questioning
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Once you have learned to ask relevant and
appropriate questions you have learned how to
learn and no one can keep you from learning
whatever you want or need to know. Neil
Postman
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The Three Bears

• Think
• Using the story of The Three Bears, write 5
  questions that you would ask a 3rd grader to
  check comprehension. Make up 5 more for an 8th
  grader.
• Pair
• Pair with a partner and choose 5 for each grade
  level between your two lists.
• Share
• Share your lists with the entire group.

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The Research Shows

• A questioning hierarchy exists. One kind of
  understanding is the foundational understanding
  for the next kind.
• The conventional wisdom that says,Ask a higher
  level question, get a higher level answer does
  not seem to hold.
• Teaching students to draw inferences and giving
  them practice in doing so result in higher
  cognitive responses and greater learning gains.

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It also shows

• Instruction which includes posing questions
  during lessons is more effective in producing
  achievement gains than instruction carried out
  without questioning.
• Increasing the frequency of questions does not
  enhance the learning of more complex material.
• Younger childrens learning is enhanced when
  lower level questions are asked, and focused on
  producing a correct answer.
• Redirection should be focused on a students
  response.

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Research Regarding Teacher Training

• Training teachers in asking higher cognitive
  questions is positively related to the
  achievement of students above the primary grades.
• Training teachers in increasing wait time is
  positively related to student achievement.
• Training teachers to vary questioning behaviors
  is positively related to student achievement.

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Lower Higher

• Recall verbatim
• Put information into own words
• Facts, knowledge or closed questions

• Manipulate bits of information to create or
  support an answer reasoned evidence.
• Interpretive, inferential,opened questions

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Why might How Could

• Why might lower cognitive questions be more
  effective than higher level questions when
  teaching primary children?
• How could a teacher make the abstract concept of
  answering higher level questions more concrete
  for students?

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Wait -Time

• The average wait- time teachers allow is one
  second or less
• Students whom teachers perceive as slow learners
  are given less wait time than those viewed as
  more capable
• For lower cognitive questions, a wait- time of 3
  seconds is most positively related to
  achievement, with less success resulting from
  shorter or longer wait-times.

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A wait-time of 3 seconds is positively related to
the following student outcomes

• Improvements in student achievement
• Improvement in student retention
• Increases in the length of student response
• Increase in amount and quality of evidence
  students offer

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A wait-time of 3 seconds is positively related to
the following teacher outcomes

• Increases in flexibility of teacher responses,
  with teachers listening more
• Increases in teacher expectations regarding
  students thought of as slow
• Expansion of the variety of questions asked by
  teachers

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Levels of Questions
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Types of Targeted Questions

• Hillocks questioning hierarchy
• Blooms taxonomy
• Rafaels QAR
• Q-Matrix
• Dr. Judith Voorhis questions targeted to
  cognitive skills

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Hillocks Questioning Hierarchy of Skills

• Basic stated information used to determine if
  students understand literal comprehension
• Key details refer to something important to the
  plot although only stated once
• Stated relationships Used to determine if reader
  has located a directly stated relationship

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Hillocks Continued

• Simple implied relationships
• Complex implied relationships
• Authors generalization
• Structural generalizationExplains how parts of
  the work operate together to achieve certain
  effects

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A student friendly version

• What literally does the text say? (first 3 types
  of questions)
• What can we infer that it says? (next 2 types of
  questions)
• Why was the text written?
• How is the text constructed to say that?

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Blooms Taxonomy

• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

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Raphaels QAR
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PROCESSING
THINGS THAT SQUARE WITH WHAT I KNOW
QUESTIONS I STILL HAVE
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Goldilocks Revisited

• Revisit the activity presented at the beginning
  of the presentation.
• Rewrite your questions, share with your partner,
  be prepared to share with the group.

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Where Do We Go From Here?

• Construct a QAR lesson for teachers.
• Identify right there questions as thin
  questions, and think and search and author and
  me as thick questions.
• Teach the 3 levels of questioning
• Identify the 3 levels of questioning (student
  response)
• Create questions in each of the 3 levels (student
  response)

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Description of QAR

• A reading strategy in which students categorize
  comprehension questions by where the information
  was obtained

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Purpose of QAR

• Helps students monitor their comprehension of
  text
• Provides a purpose for reading the text
• Allows students to access comprehension of text
• Encourages elaborative and critical thinking
• Helps refute the misconception that the text
  tells all

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My ideas for lesson

• Read aloud - think aloud to demonstrate thin and
  thick questions.
• Me model 2 pages, students get into pairs and
  come up with thin questions
• Use big and little sticky notes for thick and
  thin questions

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Lesson Format Before reading

• Conceptual Understanding
• Information to answer questions
• does not always just come from
• one place.

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Lesson Plan

• Anticipatory Set
• Student Objective (purpose)
• Lesson intro (This is what we are doing, why we
  are doing it, how it will help you in your
  reading.)
• Model
• Guided Practice (Scaffolded assistance)
• Independent practice
• Assessment