How to improve your questioning

Ask fewer better questions - i.e. questions that :-

• focus attention   Have you seen? What is that?

• force a comparison    How many? How long? How much?

• seek clarification   What do you mean by? Can you show me?  Can you explain further? Can you give me an example?

• invite inquiry     What would happen if?     What do we need to know?

• pose problems     Can you make the bulb light?      Can you get the salt back from salt water?

• seek reasons or explanations    How do you know?     Why do you think that?

Distribute questions around the class.

Questions have to be well targeted to be effective and everyone in the learning group has to be involved.

The following strategies are worth considering :-

• ask everyone to write down the answer and read out a selected few.

• no hands

• give pupils a choice of answers and get them to vote on the options

• discuss answers in small groups and a ‘spokesperson’ responds on behalf of others.

• take a question around the class and back again.