Questions That Gather Information

Understanding various types of questions and approaches to questioning can help you determine the best way to pose questions that help in achieving specific instructional outcomes. To start with, examine one of the Questions for Life lesson plan examples: elementary school, middle school, or high school. Explore how Row 1 of the Questions for Life model you examined was used in the lesson plan and determine if you could use these strategies in your classroom.

Then read Classroom Questions - Types of Questions, Feedback, Effective Questioning Practices and consider how you could use these techniques within your classroom. View the video Bloom's Taxonomy to gain exposure to Bloom's Taxonomy and see examples of lower level and higher levels of questions.

Next, review this Open and Closed Questions page that clearly and succinctly defines, provides examples of, and explains the benefits of using closed- and open-ended questions. Subsequently, read Dr. Robert Sweetland's definition of convergent and divergent questions and see examples of each on his Ways to Classify Questions page. Explore the example Essential Questions and determine how you could include these in your lessons.

Finally, discover the similarities and differences between the original and revised Bloom's Taxonomies and Webb's Depth of Knowledge on the Levels of Thinking chart.

Strategies for Effective Questioning

In soliciting information from students, knowing how to ask the right questions to prompt high-level thinking is essential. First, consider how A Four-Phase Process For Implementing Essential Questions could be applied to your curriculum. Next, review the Endangered Species lesson plan which uses essential questions to guide the lesson.

Next, read the strategies for posing clear and specific questions at a variety of levels in Improving learning through questioning. Additionally, review this Effective Questioning reference sheet that summarizes the definition of effeSctive questioning, Bloom's Taxonomy, wait time, and follow-up questions. Finally, examine how one teacher is employing student-led questioning approaches in the No Teachers Allowed: Student-Led Book Clubs Using QAR lesson plan.

Overview of Inquiry-based Learning

In addition to teaching content to students, effective teachers also teach students how to ask questions and gather information on their own. Inquiry-based learning focuses on encouraging your students to be active learners and question what is being presented to them. Begin by exploring the Inquiry-based Learning workshop (be sure to view all of the pages using the links at the top of the page or the next buttons at the bottom of the page) which provides an in-depth look at the background and application of the inquiry-based learning approach. Then, review the Sands of Time: Exploring Horizontality and Superposition lesson plan that uses inquiry-based learning techniques.

Finish by inquiring about best practices for effective questioning that encourage inquiry-based learning in the following articles: Practicing Effective Questioning, Three Steps for Improving Teacher Questions, and Asking and Answering Questions.

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