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Differentiation TechniqueAsk Better Questions

Read The Overview: Four Types of Questions You Can Ask

Asking questions is *such* a basic tool of teaching, yet how many of us have ever been taught to ask good questions? In this opening to a series about questioning, we'll explore how to get students asking each other questions.

Specific Examples of “Ask Better Questions”

Beware Vague Questions

I’ve been doing tons of work to re-write old questions. You can see all of my updated questions here and, since you’re a Depth and Complexity person, you can see my Depth and Complexity re-writes here. I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting how I can fix my bland, low-level questions. But one problem is un-fixable. […]

Curiosity Skill: Encouraging Students to Ask Other Students

If you want to make a massive change in the culture of your classroom, move from teachers asking students all of the questions to students asking each other questions!

Fluency: Asking For (Way) More Than One Answer

Being able to generate many possible answers is key to high-level thinking. So why don't we ask students to do it more often?

Evaluating Characters on a Graph

Here's an idea to integrate two-dimensional graphing with deep character analysis. Use the right characters, and you've got an exciting debate on your hands. Plus, it leads to a beautiful product that's perfect for Open House.

Evaluate with Academic Tournaments

The bracketed tournament isn't just for college basketball. Set up a tournament to determine best president, state, element, or literary character and challenge your students to make interesting judgements.

Why I don’t include “Explain Why” in Questions

I used to think that adding "explain why" to the end of a question somehow made it higher-level. But now I see two problems in asking students to "explain their thinking".

The Resiliency Tournament

I got to work with several groups of students (of many ages) and I tried out this task: building a tournament to decide who was the most resilient historical figure or fictional character? Kids came up with some amazing ideas.

Inquiry Training: Teach Students To Ask Better Questions

Inquiry Training is a model of instruction that looks a lot like 20 Questions. You'll teach your students to ask more helpful questions and to avoid rushing to a hypothesis too quickly.

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