Using effective questioning

Teachers use effective questions to monitor learning and cause student thinking.

What is using effective questioning?

Teachers use questioning to:

  • deepen student thinking
  • gather information about what students know, understand, and can do.

Student responses inform effective decisions about teaching and learning. Teachers use strategies to support all students to participate and share their thinking.

Effective questioning strategies cause all students to think. This creates high engagement classroom environments which improve student achievement (Black and Wiliam 2018).

What could it look like in the classroom?

What it isn’t

  • Questions thought of ‘in the moment’ that ask for simple recall
  • Always quizzes, or written responses
  • Questions asked and answered quickly, without sufficient wait time
  • Inappropriate level of difficulty – too hard or too easy to cause thinking and elicit responses.

Further reading

Category:

  • Teaching and learning

Topics:

  • Explicit teaching

Business Unit:

  • Curriculum and Reform
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