Effective Questioning

Asking questions is natural and intuitive. Teachers ask questions from the start of the lesson until the end. Asking questions forms part of any lesson because it invites the student to think, and even within a lecture-style lesson, rhetorical questions are used to invite silent agreement or begin the organization of ideas to present a response. Research suggests teachers ask over 400 questions a day.

why do we use Questions in the classroom?

Teachers use questioning as part of their teaching for many reasons, but often to:

• maintain the flow of the learning within the lesson;

• engage students with the learning;

• assess what has been learned, and check that what has been learned is understood and applied;

• test student memory and comprehension;

• initiate individual and collaborative thinking in response to new information;

• seek the views and opinions of pupils;

• provide an opportunity for pupils to share their opinions/views, seeking responses from their peers;

• encourage creative thought and imaginative or innovative thinking;

• foster speculation, hypothesis, and idea/opinion forming;

• create a sense of shared learning and avoid the feel of a ‘lecture’;

• challenge the level of thinking and possibly mark a change to a higher order of thinking;

• model higher-order thinking using examples and building on the responses of students.