Effective Questioning and classroom talk

Effective Questioning and classroom talk

1. Teachers ask questions from the start of the lesson until the end , it invites the student to think, and even within a ‘lecture’ style lesson, rhetorical questions are used to invite silent agreement or begin the organisation of ideas to present a response.

2. The teacher also uses questions as part of the assessment of learning in order to determine how they best structure, organise and present new learning.

3. Teachers must also pitch questions effectively to raise the thinking challenge, target specific students or groups within the class. This guidance informs teachers how to pre-plan their questions and select approaches for promoting classroom talk; prepare their ‘open’ and ‘high-challenge’ questions; pre-determine the level and type of challenge they wish to set, who they will target and how they will target specific groups in the classroom.

   • Most consider this approach as fundamental when examining any new learning situation. It is a formula for developing speculative thinking and establishing all we can deduce from the evidence we have (text, stories, images, sound, film, conversation etc). The maxim of the Five Ws (and one H) is that any analysis of basic facts and information is only complete, when we can answer a checklist of six questions, each of which comprises an interrogative word:
     • Developing appropriate Behaviour for Learning To develop dialogic, talking and learning behaviours, teachers should set clear rules and model good thinking, learning and talking approaches. It is also important to establish suitable values for the classroom, to build confidence, enabling all to participate fully, promoting tolerance and respect for the views of others and the contributions of others.

4. Dialogic teaching harnesses the power of talk to engage children, stimulate and extend their thinking, and advance the learning and understanding. Not all classroom talk secures these outcomes, and some may even discourage them. Dialogic teaching, therefore, is: ■ Collective: teachers and children address learning tasks together, whether as a group or as a whole class; ■ Reciprocal: teachers and children listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints; ■ Supportive: children articulate their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over ‘wrong’ answers; and they help each other to re ach common understandings; ■ Cumulative; teachers and children build on their own and each others’ ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and enquiry; ■ Purposeful: teachers plan and steer classroom talk with specific educational goals in view.

5. Pose – Teacher poses the question as a big question for all to consider and form a response to. Pause – Teacher gives thinking time and possibly discussions/thinking together. Pounce – Teacher selects who will provide and answer (no hands and not hands up). Bounce – Teacher ‘bounces’ the answers from student to student developing the ideas/encouraging all to add their views or extend the e.g. depth and breadth of answers

   • Sense – or meaning – what is it about? Audience – or tone – who is it intended for? Technique – what are the techniques that have been used - what is their effect? Intentions – What was the writer’s purpose? Personal opinion – what is your reaction? – what do you start to conclude?
   • ‘Brainstorming’, ‘Blue Sky’ and ‘Out of the Box’ are all descriptions of forms of thinking that invite participants to explore new ideas without restrictions, limitations or fear of criticism. This shares characteristics with Yellow and Green
   • NB Use whiteboards, paired / group thinking, jigsawing or snowballing in order to: 1. develop cognitive ability; 2. improve language development; 3. learn how to collaborate and build on the ideas and views of others. By engaging students in active learning conversations with teachers and each other, teachers are able to develop student self esteem and confidence, but also students learn how to:  offer information, innovate on a topic or offer solutions to a problem;  initiate topics of thinking, suggest alternatives;  speculate about possibilities and list options for consideration by the group.
     • Hypothesis forming is a higher order thinking activity, enabling students to at least guess or more usefully define a possible reason or explanation of an occurrence, an event, set of actions or outcomes. It is normally expressed as a provisional conjecture developed from the study of known evidence or facts, leading to the forming of a working hypothesis.
     • Critical Thinking Skills: The Critical Thinking Skills as suggested here are typical of similar groups of core skills used for all activities requiring organised or conscious thought.  Reasoning  Evaluating  Analysing  Problem Solving  Decision Making
       • 1. Knowledge: Who are the main characters in the story? 2. Comprehension: How do they interact? 3. Application: Can you role play an example of a key event to explain the relationship of the main characters? 4. Analysis: Who are the main protagonists and what is the common factor in their purpose, driving the plot? 5. Synthesis: What other books have we studied that help us understand the behaviour of the main characters? 6. Evaluation: How would you summarise the difference in this story different? Creativity: What do you imagine would be different in the plot, if the main characters respected, rather than disliked each other?