Questioning Strategy.

PURPOSES OF QUESTIONING.

• Enhance understanding of students.
• Make classroom interactive.
• More participation. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD QUESTION.

• Up to students level, clear and simple.
• Logically sequenced.
• Background of the content taught. 

CLASSIFICATION OF QUESTIONING

1. The literal level: Mostly used in the classroom, right there on the paper.
2.  The inferential level: (think and search) Answer
3. The applied level(‘on your own’): answers relies mainly own the readers background knowledge.
4. Thinking time/wait time: consciously waiting for students thinking an answers.
5. No hands questioning: students are aware that teachers will select the students to give an answer.
6. Basketball questioning: move questions and discussions between students. 
7. Conscripts and volunteers: teacher selects answers from those who volunteers and also equally from those who do not. 
8. Phone a friend: those who are not able to answer are allowed to nominate a another students to suggest an answer on their behalf but still they have to provide their own answer.
9. Hot seating: a student is placed in the ‘hot seat’ to take several question from the class and teacher.
10. Preview: questions are shared/display before being asked or the start of the lesson. 
11. Pair rehearsal: pair of students are able to discuss and agree responses to questions together. 
12. Eavesdropping: listen to the group discussion and target specific questions to groups and individuals
13. Big questions: the setting of substantial and through provoking questions. 
14. Fat questions: seeking a minimum answers. 
15. Skinny questions: a traditional approaches to question and answer asking everyday, questions with a fixed or specific answer. 
16. Seek a partial answer: provide only a partly formal answer, to promote collective engagement. 

 THREE TYPES OF QUESTIONING STRATEGY.

Socratic Questioning: Teaching somebody through questioning. Teacher should ask the question back if the students come with doubt,and the answer should come from students themselves.

  Under this there are six type of questioning: 

1.Conceptual Clarification Questions: Get them to think more about what exactly they are asking or thinking about.
Examples:

•  Why are you saying that?
• What exactly does this mean?

2. Probing Assumptions: Probing of assumption makes them think about the presupposition and unquestioned beliefs on which they are finding their arguments.
Examples:

•  what else could we assume? 
• Do you agree or dis agree with....?

3. Probing rationale, reasons, and evidence: When they give a rationale for their arguments, dig into that reasoning rather than assuming it is a given.
Examples:

•  Why is that happening?
• Are these reasons good enough? 

4. Questioning viewpoints and Perspectives: Most arguments are given from a particular position. So attack the position. Show that there are other equally valid view points.
Examples:

•  Why is it better than?

5. Probe Implications and Consequences: The argument that they give may have logical implications that can be forecast. Do these make sense? Are they desirable?
 Examples:

•  What is the best? Why?

6. Questions about the Questions: You can also get reflexive about the whole thing , turning the question in on itself. Use their attack against themselves. Bounce the ball back into their court. Example:

•  What was the point of asking that question? 

 Bloom’s Taxonomy: Provide a ways to organizing thinking skills in to six level of thinking.It was developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1950’s.
There are six levels:
1.Remembering: The learner is able to recall, restate and remember learned information.
2.Understanding: The learner grasps the meaning of information by interpreting and translating what has been learned.
3.Applying: The learner makes use of information in a context different from the one in which it was learned. Ex: Calculate.
4. Analysing: The learner breaks learned information into its parts to best understand that information. Example: compare, contrast, examine,etc..
5. Evaluating: The learner makes decisions based on in-depth reflection, criticism and assessment.
Example: judge, evaluate and justify.
6. Creating: The learner creates new ideas and information using what has been previously learned.

Example: construct and imagine.

 Kipling Questions: 5W and H (what, why, when, where, who and how) There are five wives and one husband.

1.“what?”: often asks for noun responses, seeking things that are or will be. They may also seek verbs when they seek actions.
Example: what are you doing?
2.“Why?”: Asking “why” seeks cause and effect. If you know the reason why people have done something, then you gain deeper understanding of them.
Example: Why do you do that?
3.“When?”:It seeks location in time and imply two different types of time.
Example: when will you give me the money.
4. “Who?”:‘Who’ brings people into the frame, connecting them with actions and things.
Example: Who will benefit most from what you purpose?
5. “Where?”: seeks to locate an action or event in three dimensional space, such as on, above, under, below.
Example: Where will you put it?
6. “How?”: seeks verbs of process. They thus are good for probing into deeper detail of what has happened or what will happen.
Example: How shall we get there?


Role of the Teacher: (Socratic questioning)

1. During Socratic questioning, the teacher is a model of critical thinking who respects students' viewpoints, probes their understanding, and shows genuine interest in their thinking.

2. The teacher poses questions that are more meaningful than those a novice of a given topic might develop on his or her own.

Role of students

1. Participate when called upon.
2. Answer questions as carefully and clearly as possible.
3. Address the whole class so that everyone can hear their answers.
4. Be as succinct as possible in the interest of maximizing classroom time and effectiveness.

Merits and demerits of Questioning Strategy.

Merits
•Request that students think and do rather than just remember.

•Handling incorrect responses/no responses.
•Prompting.
•-be positive.
•-rephrase the question.
•-use neutral prompting.

Demerits
•Time consuming.
•Minimum coverage of the context.
•Challenging for different kinds of learners.
•Calling students randomly maximizes incorrect response that discourages the std.