WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITY

QUESTIONS?

Presenters

Keisha BecerraCarol Malone- CooperSusan McGinnis

WHAT ARE QUALITY QUESTIONS? Quality questions need to be “ Purposeful, engaging, and consequential. They are aligned with learning goals, awaken students curiosity and class participation, and result in desired learning outcomes.” ( Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Bloom, 1987)

FOUR IDENTIFIED CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITY QUESTIONS

The questions promote one or more carefully defined instructional purposes.

The questions focus on important content

The questions facilitate thinking at a stipulated cognitive level.

The questions communicate clearly what is being asked.

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE PURPOSEFUL• The purpose of a question depends on

the instructional objective. • When teachers are clear about the

purposes of questions, they can better assess student responses.

• The two typical classroom contexts for questioning are recitation and discussion.

RECITATION The teacher poses a question, and after the student responds the teacher “ confirms the rightness or wrongness of the answer.” Recitation questions are usually low – level

questions. These questions ask students to recall facts,

provide definitions, or demonstrate comprehension.

These questions rarely engage students in thinking deeply about an issue.

WHEN SHOULD TEACHERS USE RECITATION QUESTIONS?

To review before a test To see if students have read and understood

a passage To check on completion and/or

comprehension of homework To assess what students know about a topic To cue students on important content To provide opportunities for drill and practice To model good questioning for students

DISCUSSION The teacher might pose a single, provocative, open-ended question and ask other questions on for clarification.Students do not wait for the teacher’s permission to speak and they do not look to the teacher for assessment of responses; they engage in dialogue with one another, listen respectfully, and make their own evaluations.

WHEN SHOULD TEACHERS USE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS?

To give students practice in thinking out loud To encourage students to hear and respect diverse

points of view To provide an opportunity for students to speculate,

formulate hypotheses, and offer evidence to support ideas

To encourage students to make connections that will help them move information to long- term memory

To create opportunities for students to transfer learning to different contexts or situations

QUALITY QUESTIONS HAVE A CLEAR CONTENT FOCUS

Once teachers have specified the purpose(s) for their question, they must wrestle with the question” On what specific content do I want to pose a question to students?”

Teachers must consider the alignment of their content to standards.

UNDERSTAND BY DESIGN FRAMEWORKS

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe created the Understand by Design Framework. This model advocates the backward design process, which consists of three stages:

Worth Being Familiar With

Important to Know and Do

Enduring Understandi

ng

QUESTIONING CIRCLE FRAMEWORKThe Questioning Circle framework was developed by Christenbury and Kelly in 1983. Teachers questions can fall into one, two or all three domains. The most powerfulquestions are found in the intersection of the three areas.

External Reality( Other

Subjects)

Personal Knowledge( Student

Experience)

The Subject ( Term Matter)

QUALITY QUESTIONS ENGAGE STUDENTS AT VARIED AND APPROPRIATE COGNITIVE LEVELS

Questions are tools for both information seeking and information processing (Hunkins, 1995).

A variety of tools exist for helping identify and distinguish different kinds of thinking or cognition.

BLOOM’S TAXIDERMY

BEFORE

AFTER

BLOOM’S TAXONOMY REVISED The most significant change is the move

from a one-dimensional to a two-dimensional scheme of classification

Knowledge ~ Remember Comprehension ~ Understand Application ~ Apply Analysis ~ Analyze Synthesis ~ Evaluate Evaluation ~ Create

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL AND REVISED BLOOM’S

New levels are expressed as verbs instead of nouns

A number of the roots are changed (remember is distinguishable from knowledge) The order of the last two levels has been

reversed – evaluate precedes create A new feature – each of the six cognitive

dimensions also have two or more specific cognitive processes (p.34- 35)

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL AND REVISED BLOOM’S

The majority of the categories relate to the ability to transfer knowledge, not just remember.

REMEMBER Recognize or recall information Students must be able to retrieve

information if they are to use it in more cognitively complex operations.

KEY – teachers must embed such questions within the “larger task of constructing new knowledge or solving new problems” (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, pp. 68-69).

UNDERSTAND A first step for teachers is to facilitate

connections between new knowledge and prior knowledge and experiences.

If a question is to move a student beyond the remember level, it must include information that the student did not encounter during initial instruction.

Compare the circumstances surrounding the United States’ acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase to those surrounding its purchase of Alaska.

APPLY The taxonomy distinguishes between two types

of application: Execution – applying a procedure to a familiar task Using the information provided on a U.S. map, estimate the length in miles of the Mississippi River.

Implementation – (more difficult) applying a procedure to an unfamiliar task

Identify the U.S. cities you believe developed after the advent of rail travel.

ANALYZE Involves breaking down a whole (idea or problem)

into its component parts and determining how the parts are related one to another

~ Fact vs. Opinion, Reality vs. Fantasy~ Connecting conclusions with supportive statements~ Relevant vs. Extraneous Information~ Determining the relationship between and among ideas

What are some of the primary themes in Lewis and Clark’s journals?

EVALUATE Involves making a judgment based upon the

application of a set of standards or criteria.

The KEY – Identification and use of standards and criteria.~ Quality~ Effectiveness~ Efficiency~ Consistency

EVALUATE Checking – making judgments about internal

consistency Were the social policies of President Johnson’s administration consistent with his voting record as a U.S. senator?

Critiquing – making judgments based upon external criteria

Which of these two paintings best represent impressionist art?

CREATE Engages students in putting together

disparate parts to form a new whole

“Create results in a new product that is something that can be observed and that is more than the students’ beginning materials”(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, p. 65).

Design a security system that would protect the safety of all students in our school with minimal infringement on individual rights.

THE KNOWLEDGE DIMENSION Factual knowledge – “bits of information”,

terminology, specific details and elements Conceptual knowledge – more complex, organized

information (classifications, categories, principles and generalizations, etc…)

Procedural knowledge – how to do something – skills and algorithms, techniques, methods, “when to do what” in specific domains

Metacognitive knowledge – knowledge about cognition in general as well as an awareness of and knowledge about one’s own cognition

MARZANO’S TAXONOMY Recitation questions – simply retrieve

information previously learned What factors contributed to the stock market crash of 1929?

Construction questions – require students to construct new knowledge that has not been previously learned

How did the public reaction to the fall of the stock market following September 11, 2001, compare to the Crash of 1929?

GALLAGHER AND ASCHNER’S TAXONOMY

Recall – equivalent with the remember level in Bloom’s

Convergent questions – one correct response, a narrowing or focusing of the thought process

Divergent questions – no one right answer; must think of new and different possibilities that are justifiable

READING TEACHER’S TAXONOMY Reading the lines – the answer is in the

text

Reading between the lines – inference

Reading beyond the lines – bring your perspective to the text (Evaluate/Create in Bloom’s)

WALSH AND SATTE’S TAXONOMY Recall questions = remember in Bloom’s ~ Simply recall what they have learned

Use questions = understand, apply and analyze in Bloom’s ~ Do something with what they have learned

Create questions = create / evaluate in Bloom’s ~Use their imaginations to go beyond what they have learned or been told

CONSIDERATIONS IN CHOOSING A TAXONOMY

The developmental levels of your students

The content areas you teach Your own personal preferences and

professional strengths The school faculty choosing one

taxonomy (beneficial)

CAVEATS REGARDING THE USE OF BLOOM’S The cognitive level of the response is dependent on the

context in which a question is posed and the student’s experiential and knowledge background

50% of answers to oral questions do not match the cognitive level of the questions

Most textbook questions are at the lowest level of Bloom’s

ALL students can think at higher level if given adequate support and instruction!

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE CLEAR AND CONCISE

Write the question Flaws are easier to see when printed Reread to check for a clear meaning

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE CLEAR AND CONCISEWording is critical to the ultimate quality

of the question Consider the students’ perspective Can students translate the question

into their own words?

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE CLEAR AND CONCISE Common understanding of the kind of response the question is seeking Wording and gender are important

considerations Appropriate to students’ age, grade,

achievement level, cultural background, etc.

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE CLEAR AND CONCISE Syntax – “the structure of the sentence and

the manner in which words are put together” Grammatically correct Address only one issue for response – single barreled Sufficient contextual information to arrive at an appropriate answer

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE CLEAR AND CONCISEAcid test of a quality question Does it feel right? Does it sound right? Is it easy to say? Is it easy to understand?

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE CLEAR AND CONCISEQuality questions are seldom asked by

chance. Carefully crafted pivotal questions

Move class into the heart of the lesson Move student thinking to higher levels

Can be time consuming and difficult, but well worth the effort Stockpile questions and share with others

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE CLEAR AND CONCISE From the asking/answering of pivotal

questions other questions emerge Clarify Extend understandings Extend the frontier of student learning

QUALITY QUESTIONS ARE CLEAR AND CONCISE“Muscles of Classroom Questions” must

be crafted according to: Instructional purpose Content focus Desired cognitive level Learner needs and interests