Presentation at Mantar ICT Teacher Only Day - 2010

1. Jan Watts The Importance of Questioning

2. What is Important About Questioning? Students understanding of what a question is There are different stages of questioning Which questions matter? What is a good question? Teaching students the difference between statements and questions

3. Our Class Environment… Will be – Hands on Encourages how, why and what Models effective questioning A place where students can take on a ‘teacher role’ – giving feedback, questioning etc A selection of thoughts from each group of teachers.

4. Lots of oral language opportunities Supportive & builds trust A place that it is safe to take risks Okay to be wrong A place of ownership of their questioning A selection of thoughts from each group of teachers

5. Teacher’s Do… Relationship building, trust and team building Simple question – why do we come to school? Teacher’s responses to questions, we need to value all questions & not brush off Show that we are all learners too Challenging & engaging environment Wonderwalls A selection of thoughts from each group of teachers

6. Teacher’s Do… (Continued) Discovery table Deliberate acts of teaching questioning Lots of games Pacing lessons Using ‘chatterbox’ to ask questions Statements versus questions Scaffolding children to move from statements to questions A selection of thoughts from each group of teachers

7. Roll the Dice and Take Your Chances… Jan threw a dice around the class to stimulate questioning, each side was labelled with – Who Where Why When What

8. Jan Suggests … Using as a pile of cards Sit in a circle or in small groups Use with a black and white photo or The digital photos the children are taking

9. Two Dice are Better Than one… Adding a secondary dice (or pile of cards) can add more depth and thought to the questioning process. This dice would look like – Is/was Are/were Do/did Can/could Would/might

10. What is Appropriate & Relevant? Closed Questions – Useful at the beginning of the a study Useful for gathering facts For classifying Checking Moving on to further questioning

11. Suggestions for Closed Questions Play games such as – 20 questions Headbands (name or subject on the person’s head or back and they have to ask questions to find out who they are)

12. Open Questions – What do They Look Like? They – Justify Analyse They prompt with – What if… What could we do…

13. Fat or Skinny? Both closed and open questions can be fat or skinny. Skinny questions do not require a lot of thought. They can be both open and closed. We use them to – gather information Find out Describe Classify See Jan's handout for more depth

14. Fat Questions Require some complexity of thought & tend to require some interpretation. Fat questions can be both closed & open. Closed: Interpreting facts Giving opinions Evaluation/justification See Jan's handout for more depth

15. Fat Questions continued… Open Questions require complex thinking & have no limit on the possibilities. May be used for: Interpreting facts Giving opinions Evaluation/justification Prediction Possibilities originality See Jan's handout for more depth

16. Check This Out… A great site to check out between the hours of 1-5pm is anyquestions.co.nzThis is run by librarians and can be a great source of research, information and learning.

17. A Final Message… Questioning is up to us – it demands deliberate acts of teaching Practice questioning every single day – across all curriculum areas Refer to the 6 stages of questioning (in Jan’s handout)