Do questions count?

Teachers, what kind of questions do you ask?

Some teachers practice assessment for learning with high quality interactions based on thoughtful questions, careful listening and sensitive responses, with observation and documentation to reflect a valid picture of the whole child.

High Quality Interactions compared to Low Quality Interactions:

Read the following questions and compare.
Remember High Quality Interactions result in High Quality answers.

• Did you do your work today?
• Do you have any doubts?
• Ingijjetha?(Dhivehi)

All three of these result in low quality interactions. How can you tell? The students will likely answer Yes or No.

Look at these questions, taken from an unknown source. Please identify yourself! :)

Probing Questions
Go on...
Give me a typical example...
How was it resolved?
Who else was affected/feels the same?

Open questions
How are you feeling?
What might happen if ....?

Linking questions
You mentioned that ....?

Reminder questions
You mentioned previously ....
Could you remind me again of ....

The above questions garner interactive answers, critical thinking, remembering, significance...
Go on and read the following!

Closed questions
Have you ....?
Do you .....?
Can you ....?
Did she....?
Would you agree that ...?

Limited choice questions
Are you going to do ....or ....?
Will you speak to ..... or will I?

Closed questions and limited choice questions result in simplified answers. As a teacher, do you know why you are asking a question? What are you really asking the question for? Do you want to hear students interact with each other and you in your classroom?

MAKE YOUR QUESTIONS COUNT!