A fundamental tool of an effective teacher is good questioning technique. It is one of the most effective and efficient ways to not only improve understanding of a topic or subject area, but to assess and deepen learning and improve pupils’ memory/retention.
One of Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction is to “ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students”. He reminds us that “questions help students practise new information and connect new material to their prior learning” (Rosenshine, 2012).
However, we should be mindful that a large amount of surface-level questioning will not develop metacognitive thinking. The key is not the number of questions asked, but the quality of those questions – and how they are used.
Great questioning can be designed to be interactive or not – but this depends on the purpose.
Questioning prompts pupils to give explanations and justifications for their answers. Questioning encourages pupils to improve an initial response, to describe their thinking processes, to make connections and elaborate on their answers.
And during all of this, teachers will be checking responses for assessment purposes (eliciting and checking understanding, knowledge and thinking), which allows us to understand what has been learned and makes the thinking and learning gaps more visible (Nuthall, 2007).
A word about praise
Creating a “neutral classroom” is important when it comes to giving praise for answering questions.
Arguments against generic indiscriminate praise were raised by Dr Carol Dweck (2007) in her article The perils and promises of praise. She says that the “wrong kind of praise creates self-defeating behaviour”. The right kind, meanwhile, “motivates students to learn”.
She adds: “Praise should provide specific feedback on learning goals rather than hyperbolic general praise like ‘brilliant’.” (See also Walsh, 2021)
For example, praising pupils’ answers can stop them from elaborating on their answers further and prevent the thinking processes from developing (Walsh, 2021).
When pupils have opposing views, if others are praised then those ideas are usually dropped and are not developed further. This largely depends on the purpose of the questioning and types of questions asked.
Three types of questioning
There are three type of questioning which can make the thinking and learning gap more visible:
- Self-regulatory questioning.
- Study-questioning.
- Socratic questioning.
1, Self-regulatory questioning
Self-regulatory questioning involves a more direct approach of teaching through explicit instruction, through dialogue, scaffolds and with guided practice modelled by the educator.
Metacognitive questioning consists of two parts: metacognitive knowledge questioning and metacognitive regulation questioning.
- Metacognitive knowledge questioning about knowledge of task (the type of activity), knowledge of strategies (which methods may be useful), and knowledge of self (awareness of our emotions and abilities).
- Metacognitive regulation kicks in when we apply this knowledge to a learning task – it can be broken down into planning, connecting, monitoring, and evaluating.
Asking self-regulatory questions is a powerful way to develop independent learning behaviours, moving novice learners towards becoming expert learners. And it can reduce the thinking and learning gaps, deepening learning, and improving retrieval.
Before I list some example questions, a caveat for whole school development of metacognitive thinking is to start off with developing expertise in one area of questioning at a time.
It is also important to be aware of which pupils require external rewards to complete tasks initially. As motivation and ultimately self-efficacy improves through the explicit teaching of metacognition, the extrinsic rewards can be slowly removed. Use limited praise for this type of questioning.
So, here are some examples of questions to ask to help develop self-regulation:
Metacognitive knowledge
- How are you feeling about this task?
- What are the ideas underpinning the task?
- How are you getting on?
- Are you on the right track?
- How do you know?
- What is the most difficult part of the task?
- Are there any easy parts you can get done first?
Metacognitive regulation questions: Planning
- What is the task asking you to do?
- What do you already know about the task?
- What skills/knowledge/experience do you already have to help you complete the task?
- What is the first thing you need to do?
- How are you going to record it?
Metacognitive regulation questions: Connecting
- Have you completed something similar before?
- Have you learned something similar before?
- What experiences can you use to help you complete this task?
Metacognitive regulation questions: Monitoring
- Now you know the first step, what do you need to do next?
- Are you on the right track to meet the goals for this task?
- How much time do you need to complete each part of the task?
- What can you do if you get stuck?
Metacognitive regulation questions: Evaluating
- How did you get on?
- Were your skills/knowledge/experiences useful for the task?
- Were you successful?
- Did you stop to change course or direction?
- What would you do next time?
Metacognitive regulation questions: Motivation
- How are you feeling about this task?
- How confident do you feel about completing this task independently?
- What can you do to help you complete this task independently?
2, Study-questioning
Study-questioning is another way to develop metacognitive thinking that focuses pupil attention and improves their learning. It encourages pupils to make stronger connections about what they are learning, making it easier to retrieve knowledge at a later time. These types of questions can be used for almost all subjects, but they are particularly useful for improving mathematical knowledge, problem-solving, reasoning, scientific and historical reasoning (Way, 2014).
Explaining the reasons why study-questioning is a useful strategy, providing pupils with question stems and allowing opportunities to rehearse and apply these in different subjects and contexts can really deepen the learning experience.
Some examples of study-questioning are:
- How does this link to what you learnt last week?
- How is this true?
- What is the main point being made?
- What is the same? What is different?
- What are the similarities between…?
- What are the main differences between…?
- Why would this fact be true for … but not for…?
- What would have happened if … did not happen?
- Why does … cause … to happen?
- Do you agree with (opinion)? Why/why not?
- How would you argue against (views)?
- What solutions or strategies would solve this?
- What do think comes next? Why?
For this type of questioning a mixture of teacher neutrality and praise is recommended.
3, Socratic questioning
Socratic questioning is a at the heart of critical thinking, and it is a useful strategy when teaching metacognitive skills through the indirect approach.
It enables you to dig deeper into pupils’ thinking about thinking; it creates a conducive learning environment. By including dialogue and providing pupils with scaffolds to create their own conceptual structures, promotes independent thinking and learning and reduces the thinking gap.
Socratic dialogue or “the Socratic Method” is thought to have originated from the philosopher Socrates (see Mughal, 2021). There are, however, things to consider when the Socratic Method is used. The first part of the process is the “inquiry stage”, where pupils’ original ideas are changed but not totally opposed.
The second part of the process involves the dialogue between the teacher and pupils. When questions are posed, pupils combine past experience and knowledge to form a coherent response.
The third part of the process involves continuously reasoning incorrectly and then using the “counter example to clarify the problem”, (Delic & Becirovic, 2016 as cited in Mughal 2021). If this leads to changing your mind then that indicates resilience.
Teacher neutrality rather than giving praise is recommended for this type of questioning. Some examples of Socratic questioning (questions based on Richards, 2022) include:
- What did you mean when you said…?
- What made you think of that?
- Can you explain further?
- What assumptions are being made?
- Are we missing anything?
- What alternative viewpoints are there?
- How would someone feel about…?
- How else could someone be affected?
- How did you come to that conclusion?
- How well did you do today?
- What would you do differently?
- Is there anything you would change?
- What would you do next time?
Next steps
- Think about the purpose of questioning.
- Use all three types of questioning to reduce the thinking and learning gaps.
- Start off by developing questioning in one small area of thinking first and build on that.
- Use some praise for self-regulatory questioning to build confidence.
- Use a mixture of teacher neutrality and praise for study-questioning.
- Use teacher neutrality for Socratic questioning to allow for elaboration.
- Using a mixture of self-regulatory, study and Socratic questioning can encourage pupils to make connections, deepen learning, improve retrieval and memory. This can lead to pupils becoming more independent in learning and it can be highly motivating.
- Anoara Mughal is the author of Think!: Metacognition-powered Primary Teaching (2021). She is a primary practitioner of 15 years and an experienced school leader of 10 years. Read her previous articles for Headteacher Update via https://bit.ly/htu-mughal. For details, visit www.inspiremetacognition.com
Further information & resources
- Dweck: The perils and promises of praise, Educational Leadership (65), 2007.
- Mughal: Think!: Metacognition-powered primary teaching, SAGE Publications, 2021.
- Nuthall: The Hidden Lives of Learners, NZCER Press, 2007.
- Richards: Was Socrates the first education coach? LinkedIn Blog, 2022: https://bit.ly/40qLMdW
- Rosenshine: Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know, American Educator, Spring 2012: http://bit.ly/2ZpbIqW
- Walsh: In praise of neutrality, Let’s Think English (blog), 2021: https://bit.ly/3L8MYhk
- Way: Using questioning to stimulate mathematical thinking, NRICH, 2014: https://nrich.maths.org/2473