Using Questioning to Check for Understanding  (Joe F. and Megan O'H.- ACE 15)

Effective and Ineffective Questioning

Research confirms that teachers rely most heavily on a way to check for student comprehension (Durkins, 1978), but this practice can be problematic for students. More vocal students may dominate answering questions or teachers may favor certain students. Poor questioning may especially have a negative effect on girls or students who are less vocal. Having just a few students provide correct answers to questions is not necessarily telling of how the class overall comprehends.

To question effectively, teachers must use a series of questions rather than just a question- answer format. The article provides a 5 step framework for effective questioning.

1: Prepare the Question

When designing questions, it is important to think about the purpose of them. On what cognitive level do you want students to be thinking? Perhaps, start questioning at knowledge and comprehension levels and build on those to ask questions at a higher level. (Use your Bloom’s verbs!)

One good idea is to get students to prepare questions at different levels. Introduce students to Bloom and have them create review questions (like for a jeopardy game). This allows you to assess twice- once as they create the questions and once when they answer them.

2: Present the Question

In this step, simply indicate how students are to respond to the type of question you are about to ask, pose your question, and choose a respondent.

3: Prompt Student Responses

After the teacher has asked the question, the student needs time to process the question and to formulate their answer. Giving about 5 seconds of “wait time” can be helpful for students, especially ENL students who need more time due to language barriers.

4: Process Student Responses

If a student cannot respond, try to understand why. Do they not understand the question or do they not know the answer? Use scaffolding to help them arrive at the answer. For example, give students a clue or tell them the textbook page where they can look to find the answer.

When a student does answer, give them feedback. Praise students for correct answers or parts of answers they have provided and ask further questions to get them to elaborate. If a wrong answer is given remember that the answer was given because it seemed logical to the student. Get them to explain their answer to try to better understand how they’re thinking.

5: Reflect on Questioning Practice

It is important to make sure that you are questioning each of your students (especially in large classes). One recommendation is to keep a seating chart. You could check off each student as you call on them to track who has already answered and how many times. Another suggestion is to use an audiotape. Record a lesson and then listen back at the questions and answers. Reflect to figure out how you could’ve questioned more effectively.

Providing Encouragement and Nonverbal Support

Remember to be aware of nonverbal cues you send when questioning. Set an example for your students of how to listen and talk to each other. Instead of half listening while trying to multitask- make eye contact, don’t interrupt your student, verbally acknowledge that you’re listening by saying things like “yes” or “I understand.”

Promoting Participation

There are several ways to involve more than one student when using questioning to check for understanding. You can use response cards where the students either write an answer on a small chalk board, white board, tile, or plastic coversheet with a dry erase marker. You can also give students preprinted response cards. For example, one card says true, one says false. You make statements and the students have to hold up either true or false.

Hand signals are another good way to check comprehension. Ask a question and have students put thumbs up, sideways, or down to denote how well they understand. You could also have students hold up 1-5 fingers to show 1 (they have no idea what you just said)- 5 (they have a deep understanding).

If your school has the technology or resources, an audience response system is another way to have students answer questions at the same time. Students each have a remote control and they answer questions by pushing a button (think “ask the audience” style). The responses pop up on the computer automatically so you can see how well the whole class understands.

“Request” is a method where students and teachers alternate who asks the questions. For example, students may read silently a portion of text. They then think of questions to ask their classmates or teacher. The class continues to read another portion and this time the teacher questions them. The cycle continues.

A final method the article suggests to promote participation in classrooms is to use the Socratic Seminar. The purpose of the seminar is to engage students in discussion. A leader poses a question to start that should have no right answer. The students then discuss and continue to ask other questions that develop as they think on the topic.


3 Possible Formative Assessments

Discussed below are three formative assessments a teacher could use regarding the use of questions.

1. Teacher provides students with a graphic organizer with three sections titled accordingly: 1. ‘Looks Like’ 2. ‘Sounds Like’ and 3. ‘Uses of Questions’. Teacher provides students with text from a novel that has many questions in it. Have students look for similarities and differences in the questions and record their findings on the organizer, using the first two headings listed above (‘Looks Like’ and ‘Sounds Like’). The students should be able to makes some of the following observations:
o The questions usually begin with who, what, when, where, why, and how.
o Questions always end with a question mark.
o A question can be open or closed.
o Questions always make us think.
o When reading a question, the reader’s voice should usually rise at the end.

Have students then document in the ‘Uses of Questions’ section of the graphic organizer reasons why the questions were asked in novel text.

2. This formal assessment uses the question game 20 Questions. In the game 20 Questions, a person thinks of a noun and other people playing the game develop ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions to ask the person about the unknown noun. The object of the game is for a contestant to correctly guess the unknown noun by asking the least amount of questions possible.

The following task will assess the students’ ability to recognize effective questioning skills. Each student will pick a noun and develop 20 questions about that noun. The student is to develop questions he/she believes will be the most effective for a contestant playing 20 Questions to use and correctly guess the unknown noun, preferably using the least amount of the questions possible. Students can ‘test’ the effectiveness of their questions by providing the questions to classmates and seeing if they can correctly guess the noun in a game of 20 Questions.

3. The final formal assessment uses Edward de Bono’s structured thinking strategy known as Six Thinking Hats. In summary, the six ‘thinking hats’ de Bono developed are as follows:
o White Hat (neutral hat) – Identifies the facts and details of a topic.
o Black Hat (judgmental hat) – Examines the negative aspects of a topic.
o Yellow Hat (optimistic hat) – Focuses on the positive and logical aspects of a topic.
o Red Hat (intuitive hat) – Looks at a topic from the point of view of emotions and feelings.
o Green Hat (new ideas hat) – Requires imagination and lateral thinking.
o Blue Hat (metacognition hat) – Encompasses and reflects on all the other hats looking at the big picture.

Teacher posts or projects a current event headline and summary for students to read. Teacher instructs students to create six questions about the current event article, providing one question for each of the six hats listed above. Students can continue to keep track of the current event issue in the news and modify/update their questions as necessary, and they can create additional questions regarding the topic if needed.their questions as necessary, and they can create additional questions regarding the topic if needed.