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11. How can questioning unlock learning?

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Use questions to check and deepen understanding. According to Robert Marzano's book, Classroom Instruction that Works, 80 percent of what is considered instruction involves asking questions. The TES suggests that teachers ask thousands of questions each year. Used well, questions can achieve two crucial purposes in teaching: they can check for understanding, and they can...

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Question formulation technique

Get students to write as many questions as possible on the topic - no quality control.

Then categorise the questions e.g. open , closed , silly etc.  Select the best 3

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Each student writes a question on the topic onto a piece of paper and moves around the room asking other students for the answer.  Whoever gets the question right autographs the piece of paper

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Agree with

Build upon

Challenge answers

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Traditionally, when I'd finish up on a lecture, a unit, a something, I'd address the class with a generic question like, "Are there any other questions?" or "Anybody still need help?"

Here's the thing. I'm not actually asking those questions and waiting for an answer. My students and I have entered into an implicit agreement that when I ask a question like that, silence is the only correct response. If they're silent, I get to move on and they get to see something new. Clearly, it works out for everyone.

Unless by "works out" you mean "students actually learn something." If that's the case, my traditional method sucks.

Ignore the fact that students don't like revealing their ignorance to their peers, especially as teenagers. Also, ignore the fact that my question is so broad that clearly everyone should have a question about something. The real problem is that I waited all the way until the end of whatever I'm doing to figure out if my students know what's going on.

The old me would just teach through and try to fix the problem at the end of the assembly line. The new me designs in hinge points ( edit: Ok, they're actually called Choice Points, which is an excellent blog name btw).

The term hinge points is used in a number of ways in education. John Hattie in Visible Learning uses that term to specify at what point an educational innovation would have a discernible affect of educational outcomes. For his purposes, an effect size of d = 0.4 is his hinge point.

I'm referring to hinge points as it refers to formative assessment. I first came across this idea in an article by James Popham. I only have a dead tree version so I'll point you to a pretty interesting book by him that also mentions them.

Pretend you're driving somewhere, perhaps to school. You have two routes you can go. You get to the intersection and each day, depending on the traffic, you decide whether to turn left or right. This is what hinge points are. They're stopping points you design into your day/week/month/year. You perform an assessment and the results determine the route you take next.

We are all familiar with reteaching after everyone bombs a test. By designing hinge points in to your day you can avoid that. Instead of fixing problems at the end of the assembly line, you're fixing as you go.

I think we're all familiar with adjusting the instruction the next day based on exit slips or the results of in class practice. That's pretty easy.

What about hinge points in the middle of class? This is a little tougher but something I've been working on.

Let's say I'm teaching a new concept in class, like the structure of atoms. The first twenty minutes of class we've been working on the idea that most of the mass is located in the nucleus. Ahead of time, I've designed in a question to determine how well my students understand that idea. I've also pre-determined what percentage of the class needs to get it right for me to move on. That percentage depends on the importance of the concept for learning whatever is next. If you're outta luck without it, then I might decide 80% of the class needs to get the question right. If you can muddle through and the next concept might help you understand the first, I might say only 20% need to get it.

In this case, because it's pretty early I'm only looking for surface understanding. So I put up a multiple choice question that says something like, "Which action would change the mass of an atom the most?"

Using whatever response system you prefer, determine the percent of the class that got it right.

In the world of Keynote/Powerpoint you can easily change up what happens next. You can either go to slide 10 and try to reteach this idea in a different way or skip to slide 20 and continue on to whatever is next. Of course if you're feeling saucy you can plan separate activities depending on the results.

You're making adjustments as you go. Going back to the driving analogy. Our old way of teaching is like getting directions and following them regardless of where it takes you when you're driving. When the directions are finished, then you figure out where you are and make corrections. Now, you're constantly making adjustments based on what's happening as you drive.

Three key points to remember:

1. Design them in.
2. Decide ahead of time what percentage of the class needs to get it for you to move on.
3. Try to use hinge points during class, not just between classes.

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Traditionally, when I'd finish up on a lecture, a unit, a something, I'd address the class with a generic question like, "Are there any other questions?" or "Anybody still need help?" Here's the thing. I'm not actually asking those questions and waiting for an answer.

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Why not take time to plan quality questions for your classes with other members of your department? High quality return for relatively small investment of time

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Questioning is an essential part of helping students to make progress but only if it causes thinking or elicits evidence that informs our teaching. And the thing with asking questions is that while there are some kids who know how to make the system work for them and actively participate in lessons because that they way they'll learn more, there are those who don't. Dylan Wiliam claims that the students who are sufficiently engaged to put up their hands and answer everything we ask them are "actually getting smarter. Their IQs actually go up."

Now, I can't vouch for the research on this but if it's true, by allowing some students not to participate we're making the achievement gap bigger. Not good.

Just in case you don't already know how to suck eggs grandma, a solution to this is some sort of randomised name generator. You can go low tech by writing kids' names onto lolly sticks á la Prof W, or you can experiment with various free web-based teaching tools like Triptico.

But the poor students' problems aren't over yet. Once we've got them to actually answer a question we rarely give them enough time to think. We've known for ages that if you allow more time for students to reply to your questions, more thoughtful answers will be proffered up in response. Typically we only allow 1 second for students to answer a question. With this kind of pressure it's no wonder that 75% of students avoid risking potential humiliation. Ideally we should allows something in the region of 4 seconds thinking time if we want give students a real opportunity to consider and deliberate. Now that could be 4 seconds of tumbleweed or you could give the students the chance to discuss possible answers and maybe even jot a few possibilities down. Sometimes giving them a specific number of answers to come up with (5 is my favourite) means that when ask students for their answer they'll have at least something to contribute.

But what sort of questions should we be asking? Questions like 'What is alliteration?' are just playing another dreary round of Guess What's In The Teacher's Head. And nobody ever learned much from that. No matter what you do, the best you can expect is for a random sample of students to tell you what they think you want to hear while everyone else zones out.

Now comes the point at which you'll notice the razor sharp pun in the post title: hinge questions are a fascinating diagnostic tool which provide data on students' understanding and allow you to make on the spot decisions about the direction of your teaching without wasting anybody's time.

Now, I'm relatively new to these hinge thingys and feel I probably should have known about them ages ago. But, as with so many other things, I didn't. A spot of internet research yielded disappointing results: there's precious little out there and what there is takes a good bit tenacity to turn in to something readily understandable. Basically what I found was a couple of posts from the inimitable Darren Mead and a transcript of a Dylan Wiliam speech. Happily however, if your hinge questions are related to joinery then you're in luck!

Here are my findings:

A hinge question is based on the important concept in a lesson that is critical for students to understand before you move on in the lesson.

The question should fall about midway during the lesson.

Every student must respond to the question within two minutes.

You must be able to collect and interpret the responses from all students in 30 seconds

You need to be clear on how many students you need to get the right answer in advance - 20-80% depending on how important the question is (thanks to Jason Buell for this).

This means you won't have time to get kids to explain their answers. This feels unnatural for an English teacher - we always want to know why, but the point here is to check understanding, work out whether you need to recap or change direction and then get a move on.

To make this work you'll need make the questions multiple choice and have access to an essential piece of English teaching kit: a set of mini whiteboards.

Here's a couple of examples:

This second example highlights the importance of asking the right question. What would happen if instead the question was: Which of these is an example of personification? I'll tell you what would happen: we'd end up bogged down in a teacher lead discussion in which everyone, except for the keeners are the front, is thoroughly bored.

A good hinge question needs a lot of careful planning but I've gotta tell you, I'm really impressed with the results. There's no hiding with the mini white board there to expose every teensy misapprehension so that I can swoop, falcon-like, and restore the beatific smile of understanding to even the most perennially confused child.

Would love to hear of ways of using hinge questions: I'm sure there's loads of you out there doing far more innovative things that I am.

And if you're fed up with being the one doing all the asking, try this.

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How effective learning hinges on good questioning - David Didau: The Learning Spy

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Hands up who likes asking questions? Questioning is an essential part of helping students to make progress but only if it causes thinking or elicits evidence that informs our teaching.

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fromgoodtooutstanding.com is your first and best source for all of the information you're looking for. From general topics to more of what you would expect to find here, fromgoodtooutstanding.com has it all. We hope you find what you are searching for!

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Works in Chrome but not in IE

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This ppt opens in Chrome not IE

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Ways to develop the quality of verbal responses to questions

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John Sayers grid

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THIS is perfect for Question Formulation Technique lessons! http://t.co/SgudS2IT Thank you @JOHNSAYERS http://t.co/RzQlBolc

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THIS is perfect for Question Formulation Technique lessons! http://t.co/SgudS2IT Thank you @JOHNSAYERS http://t.co/RzQlBolc

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THIS is perfect for Question Formulation Technique lessons! http://t.co/SgudS2IT Thank you @JOHNSAYERS pic.twitter.com/RzQlBolc
— David Didau (@DavidDidau) January 21, 2013

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THIS is perfect for Question Formulation Technique lessons! http://t.co/SgudS2IT Thank you @JOHNSAYERS http://t.co/RzQlBolc

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THIS is perfect for Question Formulation Technique lessons! http://t.co/SgudS2IT Thank you @JOHNSAYERS http://t.co/RzQlBolc

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THIS is perfect for Question Formulation Technique lessons! http://t.co/SgudS2IT Thank you @JOHNSAYERS http://t.co/RzQlBolc

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We all know the value of effective questioning, but should it be the students rather than the teacher doing a bit more of the asking? After reading about Question Formulation Technique (getting students to think of their own questions rather than just answering mine) a few weeks ago I was really keen to give it a whirl.

However, Dylan Wiliam's SSAT 2010 keynote is still ringing in my ears: we (teachers) should not waste time on self indulgent gimmicks if it causes us to move away from AfL and other proven high impact teaching & learning strategies. I'm not aware of any research on QTF and Prof Hattie hasn't commented directly but does give an effect size of 0.74 to seemingly similar reciprocal teaching so probably worth a punt.

So, with caution as my watch word, I started thinking about how QFT could complement the way I teach and the way I want my students to learn. As I type, I realise that some may take issue with that last statement so let me expand. Whilst I'm not interested in Learning Styles and feel convinced that their educational value has been sufficiently debunked to safely ignore (Admittedly, there is much ongoing debate which you can read about here and here.), I am, however, keenly interested in the attitude to learning exhibited by my students and am aware that the preference of many is spoon feeding. This is not a habit I want to encourage.

What I want is students who have the confidence to learn independently, take risks and who see failure as an opportunity for further growth and development. Getting students to ask questions would seem to slot in well.

Back to QTF. I decided to plan a lesson on characterisation in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men which focussed on developing students' ability to come up with 'good' questions. I taught the novel many many times before and am constantly in danger of falling into lecture mode and deluding myself into thinking that my charges will learn best if only they sit and listen to my shining pearls of wisdom. They don't. So, instead of simply reading aloud in class and then doing some comprehension exercise and indulging in a spot of leacher lead discussion (don't laugh: I really have done this and not that long ago either!) I been looking at ways of 'flipping' the classroom so that they do all the reading and quite a lot of thinking at home and on our class blog, freeing up lesson time for active, collaborative activities with lots of AfL opportunities to check everyone is on course.

I planned to get the class to undertake one of their speaking & listening assessments role playing the development of characters' relationships in chapter 3 - that's the dog-shooting, hand-crushing bit. The first part of the plan was to arrange the class into 'home' groups and share details about the end product.

From there, they moved into 'expert' groups: one for each of the 5 main characters and came up with as many questions as possible about their character on some big paper (I love big paper! This is probably self indulgent but, I think, harmless) without criticism, quality control or discussion.

They then had to sort their questions into categories and think about the characteristics of 'good' questions. I gave them a bit of direction here and suggested they think about open/closed and factual/conceptual questions. I had thought that they might find this tricky but was pleased to find myself proved wrong yet again.

The transition between steps 2 and 3 seemed to occur almost seamlessly as categorising lead them naturally into making decisions about 'good' and 'bad' questions. Each group arrived at their three 'best' questions quickly and were eager to share with other groups.

I'm not sure I handled step 4 properly: I was unable to resist some whole class discussion of what made the best questions. Obviously, this meant that everyone had an idea about what everyone else had been up to but it did slow the lesson down and probably wasted some valuable learning time. I'll post some photos of some of the questions on Monday.

Finally, we reshuffled back into home groups and got on with planning for the speaking and listening assessment. When we came to review the learning and consider the advantages of asking rather than answering question, I was delighted to hear comments like:

"It makes you think deeper...""I had to consider more things than usual.""We didn't waste time writing answers."

Was it worth it? We'll have to wait until next week and consider the quality of their role plays. Anecdotally, I'm sure that this was a far better way for them to engage with Steinbeck's characters than simply reading about them and then having a discussion. Was the impact worth the effort? Well, that's Dylan Wiliam's magic question. My answer is that it really didn't take much planning; the students did all the work and I got to wander round encouraging; occasionally redirecting; having quality learning conversations about my observations and generally slapping myself on the back that everyone was so engaged.

Here's my lesson in PPT form:

Update
Here are some pics of the questions they created:

Thanks Punk Learning for pointing me in an interesting direction.

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Forget the answer, what's the question? - David Didau: The Learning Spy

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We all know the value of effective questioning, but should it be the students rather than the teacher doing a bit more of the asking?

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We all know the value of effective questioning, but should it be the students rather than the teacher doing a bit more of the asking? After reading about Question Formulation Technique (getting students to think of their own questions rather than just answering mine) a few weeks ago I was really keen to give it a whirl.

However, Dylan Wiliam's SSAT 2010 keynote is still ringing in my ears: we (teachers) should not waste time on self indulgent gimmicks if it causes us to move away from AfL and other proven high impact teaching & learning strategies. I'm not aware of any research on QTF and Prof Hattie hasn't commented directly but does give an effect size of 0.74 to seemingly similar reciprocal teaching so probably worth a punt.

So, with caution as my watch word, I started thinking about how QFT could complement the way I teach and the way I want my students to learn. As I type, I realise that some may take issue with that last statement so let me expand. Whilst I'm not interested in Learning Styles and feel convinced that their educational value has been sufficiently debunked to safely ignore (Admittedly, there is much ongoing debate which you can read about here and here.), I am, however, keenly interested in the attitude to learning exhibited by my students and am aware that the preference of many is spoon feeding. This is not a habit I want to encourage.

What I want is students who have the confidence to learn independently, take risks and who see failure as an opportunity for further growth and development. Getting students to ask questions would seem to slot in well.

Back to QTF. I decided to plan a lesson on characterisation in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men which focussed on developing students' ability to come up with 'good' questions. I taught the novel many many times before and am constantly in danger of falling into lecture mode and deluding myself into thinking that my charges will learn best if only they sit and listen to my shining pearls of wisdom. They don't. So, instead of simply reading aloud in class and then doing some comprehension exercise and indulging in a spot of leacher lead discussion (don't laugh: I really have done this and not that long ago either!) I been looking at ways of 'flipping' the classroom so that they do all the reading and quite a lot of thinking at home and on our class blog, freeing up lesson time for active, collaborative activities with lots of AfL opportunities to check everyone is on course.

I planned to get the class to undertake one of their speaking & listening assessments role playing the development of characters' relationships in chapter 3 - that's the dog-shooting, hand-crushing bit. The first part of the plan was to arrange the class into 'home' groups and share details about the end product.

From there, they moved into 'expert' groups: one for each of the 5 main characters and came up with as many questions as possible about their character on some big paper (I love big paper! This is probably self indulgent but, I think, harmless) without criticism, quality control or discussion.

They then had to sort their questions into categories and think about the characteristics of 'good' questions. I gave them a bit of direction here and suggested they think about open/closed and factual/conceptual questions. I had thought that they might find this tricky but was pleased to find myself proved wrong yet again.

The transition between steps 2 and 3 seemed to occur almost seamlessly as categorising lead them naturally into making decisions about 'good' and 'bad' questions. Each group arrived at their three 'best' questions quickly and were eager to share with other groups.

I'm not sure I handled step 4 properly: I was unable to resist some whole class discussion of what made the best questions. Obviously, this meant that everyone had an idea about what everyone else had been up to but it did slow the lesson down and probably wasted some valuable learning time. I'll post some photos of some of the questions on Monday.

Finally, we reshuffled back into home groups and got on with planning for the speaking and listening assessment. When we came to review the learning and consider the advantages of asking rather than answering question, I was delighted to hear comments like:

"It makes you think deeper...""I had to consider more things than usual.""We didn't waste time writing answers."

Was it worth it? We'll have to wait until next week and consider the quality of their role plays. Anecdotally, I'm sure that this was a far better way for them to engage with Steinbeck's characters than simply reading about them and then having a discussion. Was the impact worth the effort? Well, that's Dylan Wiliam's magic question. My answer is that it really didn't take much planning; the students did all the work and I got to wander round encouraging; occasionally redirecting; having quality learning conversations about my observations and generally slapping myself on the back that everyone was so engaged.

Here's my lesson in PPT form:

Update
Here are some pics of the questions they created:

Thanks Punk Learning for pointing me in an interesting direction.

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Forget the answer, what's the question? - David Didau: The Learning Spy

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We all know the value of effective questioning, but should it be the students rather than the teacher doing a bit more of the asking?