by Curtis Cunningham, Professional Learning Specialist
Standard #4: Critical Thinking
Quality Indicator #1: Instructional strategies
leading to student engagement in problem solving and critical thinking.
Questions
are such a powerful tool. One question can rattle around in your head for days
and help you see the world in a completely different light. Another question
can make you ashamed and leave you feeling unworthy. Still another question can
irritate you, sending you into an orbit of frustration.
Questions
are a funny thing, and they can have a profound impact on our work as
educators. However, questioning is not a natural approach to teaching. Our
inclination is to tell our students the information they should learn rather
than asking questions that will encourage them to discover the information for
themselves. While the former approach might be more efficient, the latter
approach will have more lasting effects (Hattie, 2012) provided that the questions
are targeting higher levels of thinking.
As
teachers, our challenge is to use questioning to ignite student curiosity and
to compel them to engage in meaningful inquiry. “Successful inquiry leads us to
‘see’ and ‘grasp’ and ‘make sense’ of things that were initially puzzling,
murky or fragmented; thus questioning is meant to culminate in new and more
revealing meaning” (McTighe and Wiggins, 2013). Effective questioning that
encourages inquiry will oftentimes lead to more questions. When we use questioning
as McTighe and Wiggins suggest, we see a continuous cycle of inquiry,
questions, discovery, questions, and further inquiry. Students will naturally
be engaged in this cycle of learning.
It
might be worth exploring your students’ perception of your questions compared
with your own. A strategically placed video camera or voice recorder might
allow for some analysis and reflection on the number and nature of the
questions you ask (Prensky, 2010). As you consider embarking on this analysis, you
might consider the four types of questions described by McTighe and Wiggins
(2013):
Questions
that hook are designed to pique the interest of students and are typically
delivered in kid-friendly language.
Questions
that lead typically have one right answer and support students in recalling
information.
Questions
that guide are typically open-ended and might be asked throughout a unit of
study to encourage further exploration of the topic.
Finally,
essential questions spark discussion and debate, and often generate more
questions.
Asking
questions is simple enough; however, asking questions that will propel our
students toward their learning goal is quite challenging. For more information
on the topic of questioning you might be interested in the Questioning module located in Glass Classroom.
I leave you with this question: How will your students benefit from your use of questions?
I leave you with this question: How will your students benefit from your use of questions?
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for
teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2013). Essential
questions: Opening doors to student understanding. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching digital
natives: Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.