Thinking about Questioning

In this section you can see teachers and trainers using a range of questioning techniques.

Introduction
Teachers and trainers ask questions for a variety of purposes. Questions can be used to keep learners engaged during an explanation, to assess their understanding, to deepen their thinking or focus their attention on something.

The teachers and trainers in the pilot explored the use of open questioning - questions that have a range of possible answers, questions that make learners think and questions that can be answered at a number of different levels.

Consider how you might incorporate more open questioning in your own teaching.

Review
Throughout this section you are invited to reflect on the use of questioning in mathematics and on how you might apply these ideas in your own teaching. In particular, how might you make your questioning more open, and how might you respond to a range of answers from your learners?

A possible starting point is to plan three or four open questions and try using them with mini whiteboards. We suggest you try to anticipate possible responses to your questions.

You might also like to look at the following sections.

* 'Thinking about discussion' to explore further how questioning can help promote and maintain mathematical discussion.
* 'Thinking about assessment' to explore the assessment opportunities that questioning offers.
* 'Meeting the needs of all learners' to explore how open questions can provide challenges for all learners.

In the 'Planning learning' section of this resource you will find video sequences of whole sessions. We suggest you view these and reflect on how the teachers and trainers featured use questioning with their learners.

Questioning is explored further in the book 'Improving learning in mathematics: challenges and strategies'.

In the professional development guide there are further ideas for developing this aspect of teaching with your colleagues.