Questioning strategies
According to researchers, "the essence of effective education is built around good questions."1 Teachers help students learn critical thinking skills by using questioning strategies that lead students on a quest for knowledge. At the beginning of a lesson, questions that elicit a yes/no or single-word response might be appropriate. However, later in a lesson, Developing, Using, and Communicating Complex Reasoning and Document Based Questions (Outside Source) teach students to apply analytical thinking to the lessons.
Bloom's Taxonomy—Implications for Testing (DOC; 24KB; 1p.) is a time-tested tool for teaching higher-level thinking skills. William Daggett has adapted Bloom’s Taxonomy into his Rigor/Relevance Framework (Outside Source) which is an instrument for analyzing instructional lessons to ensure that students gain the ability to apply the lessons to lifelong learning.
The book Understanding by Design presents the idea of essential questions that force teachers to use higher-level, big picture questions to stimulate thought. These essential questions lead students to a deeper understanding of the material that allows them to apply the knowledge in other settings.
Constructed Response (Outside Source) questions are open-ended, short-answer questions that measure application skills as well as content knowledge. These questions use a range of primary and secondary stimuli and authentic real-world examples, including timelines, maps, graphs, cartoons, charts, and short readings. Teachers grade constructed response questions against specific criterion such as by employing a scoring rubric.
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Footnote
1Mike Schmoker, Results Now: How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006, 169.
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