EDT 2131/3131/5131

Lecture 5

QUESTIONING
Reminders
1. Task 1 - is due 4.06pm tomorrow (Tuesday). 2.
Task 2 – to be introduced this week in tutorials.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this lecture students can:
1. Define questioning &
2. Discuss reasons for questioning.
3. Discuss factors related to effective use of questioning.
4. Identify practices to be avoided when questioning.

What is Questioning?
Questioning refers to;
1. Asking of questions (ask, inquire, enquire, inquiry,
query).
2. Showing a feeling of doubt (desire to ask a question
to get information.
3. Method of teaching (where the teacher asks
questions to determine understanding of content).
Why Questioning?
⮚Gain information
⮚explain an answer
⮚Investigate for a solution to a problem
⮚find out reasons/justify opinions
⮚improve understanding & academic performance.
Cont.…
1. To arouse interest and curiosity concerning a topic.
2. To focus attention on a particular issues or concept.
3. To develop in the students an active approach to
learning (SCL).
4. To stimulate pupils to ask questions of themselves &
others.
5. To teach in such a way that the greatest amount of
learning will take place.
6. To diagnose specific difficulties holding back
learning of each pupil or of a class.
Cont.…
1. To get the message across to a class that involvement in a
lesson is expected from each and every one.
2. To give time for pupils to think deeply and reflect about
information they have been given.
3. To involve pupils in reflecting and commenting on the
responses of other pupils and the teacher.
4. To encourage pupils to think and to challenge them to
practise thinking and to extend their thinking ability. 5.
To give pupils the opportunity to learn through
discussion.
6. To show a true interest in the ideas and feelings of the
pupils.
Factors Related to Effective Use of Questioning
Factor 1: Fluency
⚫ number of “logical” & “relevant” questions asked
by teachers during the lesson.
⚫ questions are phrased clearly (clarify) & not in
too many words (brevity).
⚫ words used reflects the language level of
students. ⚫ Long and unclear questions are
difficult to follow.
Factor 2: Structuring
⚫ the teacher gives the students enough useful
information to help the students find the answers to
questions so that they really learn as much as
possible without trying “to work in the dark” which
leads to much waste of their time.
⚫ The teacher’s structure also help when they
arrange the different stages of the information in
the best possible order within a lesson.
Factor 3: Focus
Comes in 3 forms when it is applied to questioning.
i) Broad focus question-many possible answers to the
question.
⚫ E.g. Broad focused question (open ended/divergent):
What did you see on our excursion yesterday? ii) Narrow
focus question-only one or two possible answers to the
question.
⚫ E.g. Narrow focus question (closed/convergent): Who is
the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands? iii) Multi-focused
question (double-barreled) is connected with the number
of tasks the question is giving the students. ⚫ E.g. Who
were the first Europeans that settled in the
Eastern Highlands and what were the activities that
they became engaged in?

Factor 4: Re-directing
⚫ Re-directing is used when the teacher wishes to
 keep the attention of the children on one question
which does have the possibility of two or more, or
even several answers.
⚫ Having put the question to the whole class the
teacher may select pupils to answer in turn by naming
them (verbal re-direction) pointing, nodding,
smiling (gestural re-direction).
⚫ Gestural re-direction has the advantage of cutting
down on unnecessary teacher talk. Re-direction is a
very useful means of increasing pupil participation.
Factor 5: Distribution
⚫ The spread of the questions among students of the
whole class.
⚫ The aim is to involve as many students as possible
in answering questions.
⚫ The teacher should attempt to spread the questions
over the whole class as evenly as possible.
⚫ To do this the teacher first of all needs to have questions
prepared for the introduction, body and conclusion of the
lesson. Then the teacher needs to select students to answer
the questions from all parts of the room.
⚫ If a teacher wishes to ask a student a question when
that student hasn’t put his/her hand up, the teacher
needs to ask the question in a way which will
encourage the student to participate in the future.

Factor 6: Pausing
⚫ when the teacher puts a question to the whole class &
waits for some seconds before naming a pupil to answer. ⚫
This gives the whole class time to work on thinking out an
answer.
⚫ It is good for the teacher to use eye-power effectively
during the pause time so that as many pupils as
possible will realize that they may possibly be called
upon to answer. Avoid naming the pupil first before
putting the question.
⚫ Beginning teachers because of nervousness or tension
inside them, often want to press on quickly to ask
questions and receive answers at a fast pace to keep
children involved. However, by going too fast, such
teachers actually discourage the children from
participating.
Factor 7 Responding with warmth
& enthusiasm
⚫ helps and encourages the pupils’ participation it used
wisely. Both verbal (“good”, “well-done”) and non-verbal
(smiling, moving towards a child) reinforcement can be
used. The teacher needs to avoid using the same kind of
response all the time, thereby becoming like a machine.
⚫ A good method of questioning is to take a pupil’s response
and build on it and then ask the children another question
about the child’s previous answer.
⚫ Inexperienced teachers sometimes respond warmly to
poor quality answers. This should be avoided. A good
teacher is able to reject answers as incorrect and at
 the same time encourage pupils in their answering.

Factor 8: Prompting
⚫ Prompting takes place when the teacher rephrase
to help a pupil give an answer, or to improve the
quality or expression of an answer given.
⚫ (i) Sometimes the problem is that the pupil do not
understand the words used in the original question.
To help, the teacher may have to re-phrase the
question avoiding difficult words.
⚫ At other times it may be better to use other kinds of
questions altogether drawing from the pupil’s personal
experience or based on a more concrete level such as using
practical examples.
 ⚫ Sometimes pupils cannot answer questions because they
have missed a necessary piece of information on the way. If
may be necessary to review the information given stressing
the main points so that the pupils grasp the main points of
the background information. Then the question can be
asked.

Factor 9 Challenging the level of

Cognitive Demand
⚫ Challenging the level of cognitive demand is a skill whereby the
teacher having asked the questions requiring only the recall of
facts, can proceed to ask questions which challenge the pupils to
think more deeply.
⚫ Questions of high cognitive demand challenge the pupils to think
more deeply. Such questions are sometimes called “higher-order”
 questions and because they make the pupils think more carefully
and more deeply, they help children advance in learning.
⚫ In the lessons it is best for the teacher to proceed from simple
questions related to concrete examples and factual recall to
questions requiring higher level of thought. It is also best for
teachers to write out a list of actual key questions for the lesson
which would be included in the lesson.
⚫ Higher-order questions are particularly useful when asked in
connection with written sources or other resourced which the
pupils are able to see, listen to, read, or refer to.

Practices to be avoided when

questioning
⚫ Avoid answering your own questions. Help students
to answer the question.
⚫ Discourage chorus response.
⚫ Avoid directing questions to students who do not
seem to be prepared to answer.
⚫ Avoid multi-focused or double barreled questions as
it confuse students.
Summary
⚫ Good questions have a number of purposes in
improving your teaching:
1. They can be used to developing understanding of topics
2. They can be used to improve your assessment of your
students’ progress and needs
3. They can be used to developing skills that can be used in
other subjects and later in life
4. Students should develop their ability to ask questions in
your lessons.
⚫ Questions can be classified as either Closed or
Open questions.
⚫ Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used to divide questions by
order of difficulty into Low Order, Middle Order and
Higher Order questions.

Summary…
⚫ When asking questions think about:
1. Planning your questions
2. Sequencing your questions
3. Using pausing
4. Using probing to help students
5. Acknowledging student answers.
⚫ Encourage students to ask questions by leaving time
in every lesson for students to ask questions.
⚫ Students have to be educated to ask good questions.
Tutorial Questions
1. What is questioning?
2. Why questioning?
3. Why is it important to encourage students to ask
questions?
4. What are some practices to be avoided when
 questioning?
5. How is Bloom’s Taxonomy useful in questioning
skills?
The End
Thank you