Southeast Comprehensive Assistance Center (SECAC) Resources

Note: These resources were produced by the Southeast Comprehensive Assistance Center, which was operated by SEDL from 1995-2005.

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Teaching Thinking Through Effective Questioning

Teaching Thinking Through Effective Questioning is a design for productive questioning strategies that helps teachers improve their questioning skills. The questioning/learning strategies combine thought questions with questions that assist students in thinking through their responses to develop and refine their thinking abilities as they engage in instructional conversations about curricular concepts. A model of inquiry-the Talent Development Cycle-is used to help teachers learn and experience the types of questions and combinations of questions that promote and assess student thinking and learning across all subject areas and grade levels. As a result of the professional development experience, teachers/participants:

Develop an understanding of the various QUESTIONING PROCESSES and THINKING SKILLS;
Develop an understanding of the NATURE and FUNCTION of QUESTIONS related to reading content;
Develop skills in fielding and SEQUENCING QUESTIONS as well as UTILIZING student RESPONSES;
Develop skills in sequencing questions to facilitate student METACOGNITION and HIGHER-ORDER COGNITIVE PROCESSING;
Develop skills in facilitating CLASSROOM DISCUSSION and CONTENT ACQUISITION;
Develop a critical awareness of the RESEARCH in THINKING, METACOGNITION, and QUESTIONING;
Learn to SELF-ASSESS INSTRUCTIONAL METHODS for conducting lessons in thinking skills and cognitive processing; and
ADAPT the use of questioning processes to ACCOMMODATE both student DIVERSITY and specific CONTENT areas.

Additional Resources

Questioning Strategies to Improve Student Thinking and Comprehension (Reading Focus)

Powerpoint Resources