When teachers are planning for the assessment of thinking they can ensure that it is part of a purposeful and authentic learning cycle by:
• integrating it into the classroom program
• ensuring that teaching and learning activities are planned with the intended learning outcomes in mind so that they are aligned with assessment
• forming assessment criteria against which the pupils’ progress in thinking can be monitored
• selecting tasks that enable the pupils to demonstrate, in a variety of ways and over a period of time, their thinking skills, preferences and depth of thinking
• collecting information ongoingly and using it to inform further planning and teaching for thinking
• involving pupils in the assessment process
• recognising and building on what pupils have accomplished.
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33 The capacity to ask effective and strategic questions helps learners make connections between teaching and learning experiences to form a deeper understanding of content and themselves as learners. The outcomes of pupils’ refl ective and metacognitive processes can be used for their self-assessment and constructing goals.
This chapter focuses on the role of questioning in encouraging refl ection and metacognition in pupils, and provides an overview of some question types which are also related to particular types of thinking. Questions include those that are posed by the teacher and that pupils are encouraged to ask of themselves, their teachers, each other and the world.
Refl ective questions set the learner on the path to discovering a broader and more
reasoned point of view; fi nding alternative perspectives, illuminating omissions, addressing ambiguities and challenging assumptions. Metacognitive questions focus on the learner’s own awareness, evaluation and regulation of their thinking.
Questioning comes about as a result of refl ection and metacognition and leads to further refl ection and metacognition. When pupils ask questions about the world and their place in it they have an intrinsic reason to learn. When pupils ask questions about their own thinking, they are in a powerful position to change the way they think and learn. Knowing what you know and what you don’t know is an important motivator to learn.
Questioning
CHAPTER 3: Questioning When refl ecting, pupils use a range of questions to:
clarify and make connections between information review and/or compare ideas and draw conclusions focus their thinking
develop explanations and/or arguments
think more deeply and improve their understandings consider a range of behaviours, actions and consequences
understand other people’s perspectives and ideas, and the changes that either or both of these might undergo over time
look back pull apart ideas draw conclusions
reason and make judgements.
CHAPTER 3
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34 Smart Thinking
Lower- and higher-order questions both have an important role in developing thinking skills. For example, lower-order questions are often used as a starting point for establishing prior knowledge, basic facts and beliefs. The purpose of higher-order questions is to help pupils think more analytically and creatively, and to construct deeper understandings about the way the world works and their place in it. Questions can be open-ended when a range of ideas is sought, closed when particular answers are being checked, hypothetical when creativity is useful, etc. In addition rhetorical, strategic, provocative, and content-neutral questions all have their particular purposes.
Regardless of the type of question that the teacher poses, they should always be powerful and strategic, in order to:
• optimise and extend pupils’ thinking skills and perspectives
• clarify and deepen understandings
• help focus thinking (for example, what needs to be done, what has been learnt)
• probe more deeply
• create connections between ideas
• enhance curiosity
• provide challenges
• review plans/actions
• identify gaps in pupils’ learning
• encourage refl ection
• reveal generalisations and assumptions
• guide decision making
• spark further questions and interest in seeking answers
• focus on the thinking process as well as the subject material.
Some research suggests that teachers ask over 100 questions an hour. Given the amount of teaching time devoted to questioning and its importance in pupils’ learning and thinking, it is essential that some curriculum planning time is devoted to effective questioning strategies.
Teachers can use questioning to help pupils identify what type of thinking and questions are required for the pupils’ intended purposes. While ‘thinner’ questions (closed) may When using metacognition, pupils ask questions of themselves that focus on:
their own thinking processes, strategies, capacities, limitations, generalisations, assumptions, choices, decisions, actions and/or ideas
thinking more deeply and improving their understandings
what needs to be done to achieve the task, and how to approach it how to monitor and/or modify their own progress and thinking connections between and/or changes in ideas
factors that might impact upon their own learning and thinking such as feelings where pupils are in the learning or problem-solving process
what has been done and what might be done in particular learning/problem-solving contexts content-specifi c knowledge
ongoing knowledge of mental processes in progress.
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35 be easier and quicker to answer and ask, the open-ended questions that require complex thinking are the ones that are more likely to enhance pupils’ emotional and intellectual engagement and create cause for refl ection and metacognition.
Table 3.1, which draws on Bloom’s taxonomy (1976), provides teachers with one framework for designing questions and tasks to elicit a range of thinking skills that extend beyond recall.
TABLE 3.1 Bloom’s taxonomy for developing questions
Thinking processes Teacher questions on thinking
Teacher questions on wildlife
Knowledge (remembering)
Recalling information What do you know and believe?
Where could you fi nd a monkey?
Comprehension (understanding)
Understanding of their knowledge
What sense can you make of the data we collected?
Why do you think bears aren’t generally found in cities?
Application (applying)
Using knowledge in a new situation or experience
How can you use the information you have gathered?
Can you think of another example of wildlife that is endangered because of changes in its habitat?
Analysis (analysing)
Identifying factors/
parts
What examples can you give of all the key points?
What factors contribute to reduced habitats for animals?
Synthesis (creating)
Putting together of information, generating new ideas
What generalisation(s) can you now make when refl ecting on everything you learnt?
How could we avoid endangering wildlife?
Evaluation (evaluating)
Making judgements and offering opinions
Which opinions do you think are the most objective?
What is your opinion on relocating native wildlife?
De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats also provides a structure for thinking in different ways to promote effective questioning. When pupils respond to or pose questions that are related to each specifi c coloured hat they draw on a range of thinking skills, and gain a wide range of responses. Table 3.2 shows how de Bono’s coloured hats can be used for teacher’s and pupils’ questions about learning and thinking. See proforma 3.6: Questioning using the Six Thinking Hats (p 52).
TABLE 3.2 Questions using de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats Colour
of hat
Mode of thinking Pupil’s question about thinking and learning
Teacher question about healthy food choices
White facts and fi gures What new information did I learn? What are some healthy food choices?
Red emotions and feelings How do I feel about my thinking? How do you feel about eating healthily?
Black negative and cautious thinking
What got in the way of effective thinking?
What are the disadvantages of eating too much unhealthy food?
Yellow positive and optimistic thinking
What did I think through really well?
What are the advantages of eating healthily?
Green creative thinking What new ideas did I come up with?
How would you change people’s views about healthy food?
Blue control and organisation of the thinking processes
How did I organise my ideas? What do you think people need to believe in order to make healthy food choices?
CHAPTER 3: Questioning
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36 Smart Thinking