Guidelines for classroom questioning

• (adapted from “Classroom Questioning” by Kathleen Cotton)
• Incorporate questioning into classroom teaching/learning practices.
• Ask questions which focus on the important elements in the lesson; avoid questioning students about irrelevant matters.
• When teaching students factual material, keep up a quick instructional pace, frequently posing lower cognitive questions.
• With older and higher ability students:
  1. ask questions before (as well as after) material is read and studied.
  2. ask a majority of higher cognitive questions.
  3. teach students strategies for drawing inferences.
• Question younger and lower ability students:
  1. ask questions only after material has been read and studied
  2. ask a majority of lower cognitive questions. Structure these questions so that most of them will elicit correct responses.
• Regarding wait-time (the time you wait from when you ask the question to when you try something else because nobody has answered yet):
  1. Keep wait-time to about three seconds when conducting recitations involving a majority of lower cognitive questions.
  2. Increase wait-time beyond three seconds when asking higher cognitive questions.
  3. Be particularly careful to allow generous amounts of wait-time to lower ability students.
• Use redirection and probing as part of classroom questioning and keep these focused on important, relevant elements of students' responses.
• Regarding students' responses to recall answers:
  1. Avoid vague or critical responses to students’ recall answers.
  2. When students give recall answers, use praise sparingly and make certain it is sincere, credible, and directly connected to the students' responses.
     

Ways to ask questions