SEDL Letter | Putting Reading First | The Right Questions Can Improve Student Thinking and Learning

Questioning Strategies | Related Resources & Products

"Basic literacy is, perhaps, best characterized as a read and recall, write neatly, and spell accurately, model of performance," write Richard Allington and Peter Johnston in a recent report. But they continue, "thoughtful literacy, on the other hand, is characterized by students who can read, write, and think in the complex and critical ways needed in a post-industrial democratic society."

SEDL program associate Jill Slack leads questioning training in New Orleans. "Questioning and thinking go hand in hand," Slack says.

For the past several years SEDL program associate Jill Slack has been training educators throughout SEDL's Southeast Comprehensive Assistance Center (SECAC) region to use more effective questioning techniques in their classrooms to increase their students' level of thinking and to help them to acquire thoughtful literacy as defined by Allington and Johnston.

"Questioning and thinking go hand in hand," Slack says. Effective questioning also can be an assessment tool for teachers, helping them determine what their students know and don't know.

Slack talked about the questioning approach in an interview with SEDL Letter on April 10, 2002, in New Orleans, where she conducted a one-day training session for New Orleans Public Schools K-3 reading-intervention teachers who are involved in SECAC's Reading Success Network (RSN).

"Questioning is one of the missing pieces in teacher training," Slack says. "Teachers often ask closed-ended questions that don't allow the students to demonstrate their level of knowledge or lack of knowledge." She explains, "The quality of response is affected by the quality of the question's content and how the question is asked. The pacing of the question also comes into play."

Through practice sessions, workshop participants learned how difficult it was to ask questions that solicit a response other than yes or no. They found they habitually began questions with such stems as, "Do you think . . . ?" or "Did you notice . . . ?" that could be answered yes or no. Instead, Slack guides the teachers in asking questions that demonstrate a student's knowledge and comprehension and allow the teachers to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate. As an alternative, a teacher might ask, "What did you notice . . . ?" or "What do you think . . . ?"

New Orleans Public Schools K-3 reading intervention teachers Sonya Carter (left) and Judith Jastal work on their questioning techniques at a SECAC workshop.

Slack breaks questions down into two groups: core questions and processing questions. Core questions cue and direct the classroom's thought experiences and focus on observation and recall, comparison, grouping, labeling, classifying, sequencing, predicting, and inferring. Slack encourages the teachers to take a student's response to a deeper level by using the student's response to form their next question, which likely will be a processing question. Processing questions narrow the focus of discussion, elicit a variety of responses from different students, provide students with an opportunity to give evidence for their ideas or information, or help students create relationships between evidence and statements. "Using processing questions means we have to be good listeners," Slack says. Slack also encourages teachers to make questioning a common part of their classrooms. "Students fear questions and this can stop learning. Generally speaking, we ask a student a second question only when we consider the first answer wrong. Because of this, students have a trained aversion to the second question." Further questioning can help teachers determine how deeply a child is thinking. "You don't know exactly at what level a child is thinking until you ask follow-up questions." She notes a student's answer could indicate a certain level of analysis, but if that student heard the response the day before, she may actually be at a lower knowledge level. By probing, a teacher would be able tell how well the student truly understands the material.

SECAC's questioning workshop includes guidance in preparing lesson plans to help teachers anticipate what types of responses learners may give to core questions and the types of processing questions that the teacher should be prepared to ask to direct classroom conversation and deepen thinking. For the RSN training in New Orleans, teachers prepared lesson plans related to books they might actually use in their elementary school classrooms.

The workshop also includes time to practice coding a transcript of classroom conversation. This helps teachers refine what types of questioning they should use in different circumstances. To hone their questioning skills, Slack encourages teachers to audiotape classroom discussions. Teachers can then code transcripts and interpret classroom conversation to determine at which points in the conversation they should have used certain types of questions or redirected the conversation to encourage more critical thinking. SECAC's questioning training is usually presented to districts and schools in multiple sessions over a period of time. This allows teachers an opportunity to return to their classrooms, practice using the newly learned questioning techniques, and then return for additional coaching and training, during which time they can share how they used the techniques and receive additional feedback.

The April RSN session was unusual because it was only one day of training, instead of the several days of training that Slack prefers. Teachers, nevertheless, found the training useful. Kathleen Theodore, a teacher at McDonogh No. 15 Creative Arts Magnet School in New Orleans, notes that since the training her lesson plans "are clearly focused on the questioning techniques that I need to increase student involvement and learning. I am very conscious not only of how I phrase a question, but also of the questions I ask at a particular moment." Theodore says the staff development teacher and principal at McDonogh are now interested in implementing the questioning strategies schoolwide through staff development activities and school improvement planning.   

Questioning Strategies — An Annotated Bibliography by Jill Slack

Beyer, B. 1997. Improving student thinking: A comprehensive approach. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. In this book, Beyer provides instruction in specific teaching skills integrated into subject matter teaching. Features a practical, how-to-do-it emphasis. Full of sample materials, explanations and examples for creating thoughtful questions and classroom environments, as well as how to encourage and guide student thinking and provide opportunities to think.

Collins, C. & J. M. Mangieri. 1992. Teaching thinking: An agenda for the 21st century. Philadelphia, PA: Research for Better Schools. This book provides practical ideas and strategies for the teaching thinking, along with findings from research on teaching thinking in diverse populations.

Dantonio, M. 1990. How can we create thinkers? Questioning strategies that work for teachers. Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service. This manual demonstrates how to ask questions that prompt students to focus, expand, and support their answers. Includes specific and practical steps for developing a successful questioning-skills training program.

Dantonio, M. & P. Beisenherz. 2000. Learning to question, questioning to learn: Developing effective teacher questioning practices. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. This resource introduces a strategy that develops and refines student conceptual understandings through instructional conversations. Examines the critical issues of productive questioning using vignettes, lesson plans, and transcripts.

Kruse, J. 1988. Classroom activities in thinking skills. Philadelphia, PA: Research for Better Schools. Kruse presents over 40 tested activities in critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving, and decision making. Leeds, D. 2000. The 7 powers of questions: Secrets to successful communication in life and at work. New York: Perigee. This book reveals the seven powers of questions and shows how to use them most effectively to get more out of every professional and personal encounter.

Morgan, N. & J. Saxton. (2001). Asking better questions: Models, techniques and classroom activities for engaging students in learning. Markham, Ontario: Pembroke. This guidebook provides tips for modeling questions, lesson plans that emphasize questioning and engage students in learning, and suggestions for using questions to develop knowledge and generate reflection.

Presseisen, B. J. 1988. At-risk students and thinking. Philadelphia, PA: Research for Better Schools. This text examines students at risk in America's schools, the need for thinking instruction, and implications for practice; includes chapters by national experts.

Sousa, D. A. 1988. Questioning strategies for effective teaching. Philadelphia, PA: Research for Better Schools. This videotape focuses on developing thinking skills through effective questioning in the classroom and discusses types of questions, strategies for questioning, and how to utilize student responses.

Sternberg, R. J. & L. C. Spear-Swerling. (1996). Teaching for thinking. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. This book addresses questions such as, What is "good thinking"? Which strategies promote thinking to learn as well as learning to think? Can asking the right questions enhance student thinking? How can teachers prepare for the challenges of teaching for thinking? Lively classroom vignettes, sample classroom activities, and self-study questions are included.

SEDL communications associate Leslie Blair is editor of SEDL Letter. You may contact Leslie by email, lblair@sedl.org.

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Briefs
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Professional Development Resources: Guides/Toolkits
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