This is a module from the Actively Learn eCourse "Best Practices to Support Reading for Depth."

1. Questioning
Activate Thinking

2. Great questions are the starting
point for robust discussion and
critical thinking. They help
guide the students' focus and
deepen learning.

3. In the context of a reading
assignment, great questions
can also define purpose,
deepen comprehension, and
help students to make
connections across ideas.

4. So how can you ask
great questions?

5. Action #1:
Tie your questions to a clear objective.

6. Before you begin to write questions,
ask yourself what you want students
to get out of the text.
Figure out why the
colonists declared
independence from
Great Britain.
Understand how
the parts of a cell
work together.
Analyze character
development.
Identify the
elements of satire.

7. Imagine that you are a struggling
reader who has trouble figuring out the
main idea of a text. Does this series of
questions help to guide your reading?
Identify one figurative
device from this paragraph.
What are the major
themes in this text?
What does the character's
diction say about him?
Diagram the structure of
this narrative.

8. Your questions should serve as a roadmap
to reach the objectives you set out.
Avoid questions that seem random or that
distract from the objectives.

9. Action #2:
Build toward higher levels of complexity.
Question complexity is different from
question difficulty. Difficulty refers to
the likelihood that students will answer
the question correctly. Complexity
refers to the level of thinking, number of
steps, or the abstractness of the task.

10. Webb’s Depth of knowledge (DOK)
offers a useful schema for thinking
about cognitive complexity.

11. Complexity = Difficulty
You can ask students questions that are low-
difficulty but high-complexity and vice versa.
For example, you could ask them to design a
project around a concept that they are
familiar with. The project will require several
steps (high-complexity), but they will likely
be successful because they understand the
material (low-difficulty).
/

12. Teachers tend to ask far too
many low-complexity questions.
90%
90% of teachers'
questions focus on lower-
order skills such as
memorization and recall.
Source: http://teaching.uchicago.edu/teaching-guides/asking-effective-questions/

13. It's fine to start with surface- or lower-
order questions to help students
understand the basic ideas. But the goal is
to use that surface learning to go deeper.
Surface-level learning
Deeper learning

14. The biggest reason to favor higher-
order questions is that they are more engaging
for students and provide more interesting
answers. These questions lead to discussion
and debate because they are open to
interpretation. They also enable students to
think more deeply because they require
students to construct meaning rather than
merely identifying information in the text.

15. Ask higher-order questions to
your struggling students because it gives
them flexibility to choose among different
ways to answer and support his or her
reasoning. Lower-order questions
typically have one correct answer, which
narrows the approaches that a student can
use.

16. What are the
steps of the
scientific method?
When did the
United States
enter World
War II?
What was
Hamlet's
relationship
to Claudius?
Examples of lower-order questions
Examples of higher-order questions
Why was
the US
reluctant
to enter
WWII?
Why does
Hamlet take
so long to
get
revenge?
Design an
experiment using
the scientific
method.

17. Action #3:
Ask one question at a time
Multi-layered questions are confusing for
students, because it's not clear which
question you want them to answer.
"What does 'checks and balances'
mean? How does the federal
government impose this concept
between the executive, the legislative,
and the judicial branch? What is the
rationale behind this system?"

18. These types of questions are
great to use as a series during
class discussion, but for written
questions, stick to one at a time.
"How does the federal government
impose checks and balances between
the executive, the legislative, and the
judicial branch?"

19. If you need to clarify your
question, do it in a follow-
up statement.
"Does the author provide sufficient
evidence to justify her reasoning? In your
answer, consider her use of data and her
rebuttal of the counterargument."

20. Action #4:
Vary the types of questions you ask to
enable students to think in new ways
and practice a variety of cognitive skills.
Don't fall into the habit of
repeatedly asking the same
questions and focusing on
the same set of skills.

21. One way to avoid this is to research
question stems. A simple online search
for subject-specific questions can yield
great inspiration.

22. Review your questions to see if you
notice any patterns. Aligning your
questions to standards may make
this even more apparent.

23. Questions are the
currency of education.
Make them count!

24. #deepreading
#effectivequestions