Introduction to OER4Schools
The OER4Schools Professional Learning Resource
Unit 2 Session 3
Review of homework and classroom activities
- Did you complete the lesson plan with focus on questioning (and ICT pictures activity if applicable)? Please save it in your folder for future reference.
- Did you teach the lesson? How did the ICT pictures activity go? How did learners respond? What issues arose?
- Which questions did you find useful for interactive teaching? Did you generate any questions that were not previously planned? How were they helpful? Share examples of questions that you would encourage others to use.
- How did the pupils respond to your questions for interactive teaching? How did you handle their responses? Share specific examples of the techniques that you used related to handling open and deep questions. What were the benefits of the techniques? What were the challenges?
More on Questioning
The objectives for this session are:
- Learning further techniques for questioning and handling responses
- Learning to increase pupil participation for answering questions
- Practising effective questioning and handling responses
Activity One: Reading for further questioning and handling responses
Dialogue involves building on pupils’ responses so that chains of thinking lead to effective learning.
Ask participants to refer to page 7 in the VVOB handout from last week; it is available at OER4Schools/Questioning checklist. Also distribute the TESSA handout entitled ‘Using questioning to promote thinking’.
Ask participants to finish the VVOB handout work and then proceed to TESSA handout work. Ask them to be swift yet thorough in reading.
Present yourself as available if they need to clarify something from the handouts.
Look at the OER4Schools/Questioning checklist (taken from the green box on page 7 of last week’s VVOB handout on questioning) and see how the statements might have applied to your practice during the past week (i.e. since the last session on questioning). Tick Yes or No.
Read pages 2 and 3 of the TESSA handout with the headings ‘Improving the quality of responses’ and ‘Common mistakes in questioning’. Which 2 of these 5 strategies for effective questioning and handling responses would you like to try out in the next week?
Prompting, Probing, Refocusing, Sequencing, Listening
Ask participants to keep these answers safely. They will be required for further activities.
Before proceeding to Activity two confirm that everything mentioned in the handouts is clear to the participants. If anything is not clear, have a discussion about it and involve everybody.
Activity Two: Increasing participation in answering questions
Prepare for this activity by printing out from the file the list of Strategies for increasing participation.pdf and cut it up so each strategy is on a separate small piece of paper. You can also write them if printing is not possible. Fold each piece separately and keep them in a basket, box, tray or plastic bag.
Here is a list of strategies for increasing participation in answering questions, also available as a separate file.
- Selecting volunteers – a common method. Ask pupils who know the answer to raise their hands and select one of them to answer.
- Random selection – Write name of every pupil on a piece of paper or an ice lolly stick and put them into a container. Pull out a name (without looking) to select a pupil to answer.
- Teacher nominations - or “no hands up”. Choose specific pupils to answer your question. Select pupils who generally volunteer as well as pupils who avoid volunteering.
- Pupil nominations – Ask the pupil who has just answered to nominate the next speaker (change strategy if same pupils are getting the chance to speak).
- Talking tokens – Cut tokens out of thick paper. Give 2-5 tokens per child depending on the duration of the lesson. Every pupil has to use their tokens by answering questions. (Define use of tokens depending on your lesson, for example, pupils can use tokens by asking questions, volunteering to write on blackboard etc).
- Mini-blackboard display – Every pupil should write their answer on a mini-blackboard and hold up to show the answer. Then select five pupils who have different answers to stand in the front and further question them about their answer.
- Advance selection – Tell pupils who are shy and have fear of wrong answers some of the questions that you would ask, before the lesson. Ask them to think of an answer and select them for answering.
- Eye contact – Avoid eye contact with dominant speakers. Have a deliberate eye contact with shy pupils indicating that you are expecting them to answer.
- Talk about participation – Plan a lesson that explains usefulness of participation and eliminates fear of wrong answers. Ask pupils to suggest ideas that will help them to participate yet be responsible for discipline.
- Criteria based – If the topic for the day is not serious, set a criterion to select pupils for answering. For example, come forward to answer this question if, ‘you have red shoes, or ‘your name ends with s’, or ‘you are the first child in the family’, or ‘you have one younger sister’, etc
Ten volunteers each pick up one folded paper from the basket. They read the strategy on it and then they explain it to other participants through demonstration and/or thinking of practical examples.
OR ask groups to discuss the different possibilities listed – which ones they think would work and why.
Encourage volunteers to suggest practical examples. Ask other participants to ask the volunteers questions if any strategy is not clear.
Activity Three: Video watching
Questioning Styles and Strategies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uKqs3D0Z0M&NR=1&feature=endscreen In this 8-min. sequence, Dr. Harvey Silver guides you through a learning session that may help you develop a wider repertoire of effective questioning practices for your classroom. A larger variety can help you engage learners working at different levels.
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1085308 This 10-min. clip illustrates how groups of children aged 10 revisited a collection of images that Diane, a UK primary teacher, had collated during the previous lesson, pertaining to personal safety issues.
A student from each group comes up in turn to the whiteboard to annotate their chosen images, sharing with the class the advice they had previously generated during group discussions (“as a team working for Childline”, the child abuse phoneline) and recorded on large sheets of paper, or in one case, on the board. Note that an interactive whiteboard was used but a data projector could have been used alone.
The teacher prompted students with open-ended, probing questions such as “What do you think about that?” “Why did Mehmet write “be assertive”? "Why are you [suggesting she calls the] police?” She thereby helped children to be responsive and build on each other’s ideas, make reasoned arguments and develop insights into the characters’ mindsets. Children drew on their own experiences in exploring some complex issues and ethical dilemmas (e.g. the worry that a family would be split up if a domestic violence situation was reported).
Suggested questions for reflection on both videos:
- What were the different types of questions you identified in the clips? Which types do you think were more effective?
- Which questions or statements seemed effective in extending pupils’ responses and getting them to build on each others’ ideas? Give examples.
- How can you adapt or adopt the strategies for increasing pupil participation in your classroom? What would you like to add or change about the practice in the clips?
Planning for peer observation
Write down any further points emerging about questioning and handling responses in the table that you filled in during Activity one in this session.
[Individual or pair activity] Prepare a 10-minute activity for an impending lesson that focuses specifically on questioning and handling responses related to the lesson topic. Work with a same-grade buddy if available. Use the activity template again. Include some of the new ideas that have emerged in this session; be sure to include
- one of the strategies for improving the quality of responses (TESSA)
- one of the strategies for increasing participation in answering questions
Discuss:
- Which other points about questioning and handling responses should be included in the questioning checklist ([OER4Schools/Questioning checklist]]? Edit the table using the copy in the checklist file and add your own statements at the bottom.
Note answers to these points on the flipchart or blackboard. Remember to demonstrate good questioning and handling responses yourself.
Remind participants to think about their own practice and to suggest specific points that can be observed by anybody. Some questions that you can raise which will encourage participants to think are:
- What do your questions generally start with – What, Who, When, Why, Where, Did, Can etc? Does this need any improvement?
- Do you tend to answer your own questions?
- Do you look for specific answers after posing a question?
- How long do you wait for before asking the next question or making the next statement?
- How do you encourage shy pupils to answer?
- How do you manage same pupils answering most questions?
- When a pupil responds to your question, do you give feedback immediately or follow it up with another question?
[Whole group activity] This will result in a modified observation checklist related to questioning and handling responses.
Encourage participants to include as many points in this table or ‘observation checklist’ as possible.
Follow-up classroom activity
Try out your new questioning activity in a lesson and ask your buddy to observe you for just that section of the lesson. They should use your modified observation checklist to see if your questioning meets your own goals but can also add their own comments below the table. In turn, observe your buddy using their checklist. You may or may not want to trial the same activity.
You might like to try out other strategies in other lessons, for example those you ticked No to or added your own ideas to in the OER4Schools/Questioning checklist, or other strategies for improving the quality of responses or participation in answering questions.
