Questioning ＊ Byrdseed.TV

Asking Questions That Make Students Think

Most classroom questions test memory. These questions test thinking. There’s a difference — and your students will feel it.

Developing Questions that Prompt Thinking in Math

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Math is a particularly tricky subject for asking higher-level questions. Here are a couple of techniques I’ve used to prompt students to think, not merely calculate.

Don’t Make A Mere Model!

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This task is all about the product, but completely ignores how students will think.

Updating Old Questions: Conflict and Character Change

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I update an old question about conflict and character change in the story Hatchet.

Go Beyond “Explain This Quote”

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I’d show a quote and then ask, “What does this quote mean?” And that was it!

Running A “Notice, Wonder” Lesson

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Use these puzzling images to build a classroom culture that is comfortable with curiosity, ambiguity, and taking intellectual risks.

Improving Wait Time

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How much time do your students get to think after a question? Probably not enough. Here’s how to fix that.

Updating Old Questions: Pay Raise

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How I’d update a low-level, overly engaging math question.

Creating Sequences of Questions

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High-level questions on their own simply aren’t enough. We must create sequences of questions!

Updating Old Questions: Volcano from Two Perspectives

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How I’d break down and rebuild a task about judging a volcano.

Improving Evaluative Questions

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How to improve questions at the “evaluate” level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

From “Too Many Choices” To “One Quality Task”

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Fixing an under-developed (but interesting) task that was originally part of a choice menu.

Going Beyond “Name That Genre!”

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Naming the genre is step one. But what comes after that? Here’s how to push students past identification into real analysis.

Go Beyond “Identify Figurative Language”

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So students can identify a simile, metaphor, and hyperbole. What next?

Updating Old Questions: Comparing Two Leaders

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How I’d upgrade a dull “which one is better” question.

From Frantic Questions to Sensible Sequence

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Why was I asking five, unrelated, low-level questions in a row?

Who Asks The Questions? And Who Answers?

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What would the pie chart look like for these three situations: the teacher asks the students, a student asks the teacher, or a student asks another student a question? I can tell you my pie chart would have been very lopsided.

Help my students remember these confusing terms!

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When we want students to memorize two terms, we actually shouldn’t aim for memorization!

Improving These Novel Study Questions

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Let’s fix these nine, underdeveloped discussion questions!

What if Dr. Seuss Covered a Poem?

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Rather than just “paraphrasing” a poem, what if we did a cover version?