RTDI - Questioning Strategies

June 19, 2013

Questioning Strategies

Questioning skills refer to one's ability to formulate and respond to questions about situations, objects, concepts, and ideas.There are two levels of questions: low-level questions and high-level questions. Questioning strategies are useful to instructors for effectively planning class participation activities, for designing homework assignments, and for writing exams. The strategies help instructors to match their goals or objectives for an assignment with the actual components of the assignment. Other functions of questioning strategies are as follows.

to motivate and to interest
to reveal prior misconceptions
to evaluate
to guide thinking
to discipline, manage, or control
to encourage involvement of passive learners
to diagnose strengths and weaknesses
to understand how students form concepts
to help students form the habit of reflection
to gain insight about students' interests
to increase students' incentive to inquire
to help students learn to construct meaning
to help students set realistic expectations
to summarize information
to relate concepts
to provide student feedback
to give listening clues

Source: http://www.muskingum.edu/~cal/database/general/questioning.html

Questioning techniques can be used to differentiate instruction in the moment. When the teacher is very familiar with each student's background, learning style, interests, and readiness level, questions can be adapted to fit individual needs for academic development. Teachers use questions to stimulate thinking about a concept and challenge students to attend to higher levels of thinking appropriate to the content and learning outcomes. Instructional pacing can be accelerated during questioning related to facts and decelerated for more complex material and open-ended questions. Teachers can allow more wait time for student responses for more meaningful learning.

(San Diego County Office of Education)

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