Here are some repeating problems and techniques I’ve spotted while going through my old lessons and updating the questions.
Get my weekly Monday mailer. I apply these principles to old questions I asked a decade ago in my classroom.
🍲 Test Your Soup – I asked a lot of questions that I never tried answering myself. The result: my students faced confusing, poorly worded questions. I didn’t notice those problems until students walked up and asked for clarification. Over and over. I’d stop the class and re-explain. I’d re-write directions on the board. I’d get frustrated. But the reality is, you’d never serve soup you hadn’t tasted first, right? So I darn well should have been testing my questions before I asked them.
🧠 Focus on Brains, Not Hands – “Create a 3D, virtual reality, animated model of the planets in order” is at the same, low-level of thinking as “Create a list of the planets in order.” Students will just recite known information. When I jumped to a fancy final product, I was putting a whole lot of lipstick on a very sad pig. Read more about putting thinking before the product.
🔪 Sharpen Those Questions! – No more dull questions! Get specific. Get weirdly specific. Specific questions make people think. “What is a great movie that you just don’t like?” is much more interesting than “What’s your favorite movie?” Read more about getting specific.
1️⃣ Beware One-Offs – Never ask one question and jump away to another topic. Ask sequences of questions. That’s how you get to high-levels of thinking. It’s also how normal, human conversations happen! We ask naturally follow-ups and push deeper. Read more about asking sequences.
🪜 To Climb High, Start Simple – When I did aim for a high-level of thinking, I usually did it too soon in my sequence. I’d scare kids off. I hadn’t prepared them for a complex question. The first questions in a sequence should be simple. They’ll build momentum. We ease students towards the higher-level questions. So, a great lesson won’t target just one level of Bloom’s. It will climb several levels. And, yes, not everyone will get to every question or complete every task, but that’s differentiation!
⚖️ Get To Analyze – I want to make sure I make it to the Analyze level of Bloom’s. This level is the key. As a new teacher, I’d either stop my questioning below this level or I’d jump right over it – and confuse my students. Once my students are Analyzing, it naturally unlocks the Evaluate level of thinking. And that makes it much easier for students to Synthesize. So, how can students compare, contrast, or categorize? Read more on why I ❤️ Analyze.
✍️ Model! Model! Model! – Nothing makes a series of questions clearer than answering them in front of the class. Modeling is key, but I’d skip it in order to “save time.” (And then it cost me 10x as much time since I had to keep clarifying for confused students). So, pick some related content and answer the questions in front of your class. Not only will you get to clarify each step, but you can emphasize your expectations. (“Now, I’m not going to just write one word, right class!? No way! I’m going to explain myself…”)
🤫 Don’t Write “Explain Why.” Speaking of which! I don’t need to write “Explain why” any more than I need to write “Please write in complete sentences” or “Capitalize proper nouns”. This is about having basic expectations. And, if a student doesn’t explaining their thinking, I just hand the work right back to them! I wrote more about that here.
🤡 Engagement Isn’t The Goal – So many of my questions relied on silly names or situations to try to “engage” students. Great questions are naturally engaging. What’s better, they are interesting. They get students thinking. Beware of aiming for mere engagement.
✅ Checkpoints. Wait. How do you handle all of these tasks and questions? In my class, I’d give just one task at a time. Then students would bring me what they came up with. I’d either check it off and give them the next task, or I’d say, “Hmm, I think you could do better,” and hand it back. This way, I’m ensuring quality all the way up, I’m taking care of grading as I go (very few things need an actual grade), and I’m interacting with all of my students.