Hinge Point Question

Adapted from Wiliam, D. (2015). Designing great hinge questions. Educational Leadership. Vol 73. Number 1:

Definition:

When planning a lesson, the teacher identifies a particular concept that will be important for students to understand before moving on to other parts of the lesson. The teacher chooses one point somewhere in the middle of the lesson and, at this hinge, the teacher asks a hinge question to check that the class has understood this key point of the lesson and gets a response from every single student. Depending on those responses, the teacher either moves on or goes back to review the material.

The Rationale Behind Hinge Questions:

Because lessons never go according to plan, teachers should build plan B into plan A. This involves designing a lesson with a "hinge" somewhere in the middle and using specific kinds of questions—called hinge questions—to quickly assess students' understanding of a concept before moving on. There's nothing new in this idea, but it turns out that it's rather difficult to do well.

Principles:

1. Get a response from every student
2. Do a quick check on understanding instead of engaging in extended discussions
3. On the basis of student responses, decide whether to go forward (plan A) or backwards (plan B)
4. Design hinge questions that elicit the right response for the right reason (aligned to the lesson outcome, gives good information if students are ready for what's coming next).