Sunday, February 11, 2018

Questions

Questions









Have you reflected on the questions you ask during your lessons?  Do your questions increase student thinking?  Do your questions allow students to have deep conversations with each other?  






How do good questions relate to good conversations?
My answers to the questions above are:
-Yes, I always reflect on the types of questions I ask, especially when I ask the wrong ones. That is totally ok.  It happens.
- No, not all my questions increase student thinking.  I find that out after I have asked a question and my students have very little to discuss.  
-When I ask the right questions, YES, my students hold conversations with their partners or groups at such a deep level.  They even begin to question each other!

Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers. -Josef Albers 

Critical Thinking
I feel it is every teacher's goal to get students to become critical thinkers.  Making sure I ask the right questions has helped my first-grade students think at a deeper level.  As a teacher, it is not easy to ask the right questions but it changes the direction of your lessons when you do.  

The DOK chart above is a tool that can help with strategically planning out questions you want to ask during your lessons.   For example, we recently have read The Gingerbread Man. Here are two examples of how different the conversations would change with a level 1 to a level 4 question:

DOK 1- Who is the hero in this story?
DOK 4- What would happen if the fox did not have any intentions of eating the Gingerbread boy?

Both questions are great, but as you can see, the second question would increase the thinking happening in my class.  The DOK 4 question would allow my students to become critical thinkers.  They would have the opportunity to agree or disagree with each other based on their answers.  

My goal is not to always stick to one DOK level all day long. My goal is to give my students the opportunity and encourage them to find answers on their own.  
Always Learning,
Sabrina Blackwood

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