Develop Your Questioning
Techniques
Patty Blanton
Assistant Editor The Physics Teacher
Instructional coach for Modeling High School
Physics, Physical Science, and Chemistry MSP
Grant
Classroom Climate
Clearly establish the expectations of the learning partners
Expectations of Students:
Expectations of Teacher:
1. Contribute to building knowledge
2. Answer questions clearly, carefully, and
thoughtfully
3. Speak so that everyone in class can
hear
4. Respect the ideas of others
5. Challenge ideas respectfully
6. Engage in dialogue to clarify ideas
presented
1. Plan significant questions to develop
understanding of the established
instructional goal
2. Provide sufficient wait time
3. Keep the discussion focused
4. Encourage students to elaborate and
clarify responses
5. Draw in as many students as possible
6. Periodically summarize
Assessing for Prior Knowledge
Checking for prior knowledge gives insight to guide
your instruction. Periodic assessments during a unit
help adjust your planning to meet the needs of
students.
Example: Using www.wordle.net to determine what
ideas students think are important about the topic
being discussed
Other possibilities:
Pre-tests
concept mapping (Inspiration)
" clickers"
various web applications such as online surveys
Bloom's Revised Taxonomy
1.Knowledge (remember)
2.Comprehension (understand)
3.Application (apply)
4.Analysis (analyze)
5.Synthesis (create)
6.Evaluation (evaluate)
Jamie MacKenzie's Questioning Toolkit
http://www.fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html
Types of questions and various tools to develop these
questions and answers
A Thinker's Guide the
Socratic Questioning
Sample
Let's Practice
Lesson on motion: What is motion and what are the ways we
can describe it?
Teacher will:
Plan activities to engage students
Think about the types of questions to ask and strategies to
guide the development of ideas
Plan the assessment strategies to check progress
Students will:
Observe, ask questions, contribute ideas, collect and analyze
data, draw conclusions based on the data, apply the concept to
several situations
Building a model for motion:
Watch the moving objects
Describe the motion
Identify what is changing and what is measurable
Is there a pattern to what is changing and how it is changing?
Collect and analyze data to identify pattern
Summarize results
Develop operational definitions and associate names to the
concepts
Apply to a novel situation
Types of representations
Graphs and mathematical
representations
Help identify and quantify
relationships between
variables
Mathematical equations come
from curve-fitting to graphed
data
Graphic and descriptive
representations
Motion maps
Concept mapping
Diagrams
Verbal representations
Links to helpful websites
Integrating Technology into the
Classroom using Instructional Strategies
based on the research from:
Classroom Instruction that Works
by Marzano, Pickering, Pollock
http://www.tltguide.ccsd.k12.co.us/instructional_tools/Strategies
/Strategies.html
Professional Organizations:
AAPT: http://www.aapt.org/
NSTA: http://www.NSTA.org/
Modeling Science Instruction:
http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling-HS.html