Throughout my placement I have come to realise the importance of effective questioning and how it is used. I have been getting feedback that my questioning is good, however in the modern world of teaching outstanding is the target.
This is clearly relatively new as I have heard many conversations and attended CPD session on how and why to use questioning effectively. Bloom's taxonomy keeps popping up and question roots and learning stems are two things that I have held on to in order to benefit my teaching. On a very basic level I will ask a what, why and how question and will target the question at specific students. I have also now began to incorporate learning skills into my lesson outcomes.
I understand how beneficial effective questioning is but have argued my case for how it is to be delivered. The recent feedback I received stated that my questioning was good but instead of asking the question and then saying the pupil's name, I have been advised to start with a name first. I disagreed because I feel that by directing the question first immediately closes many doors and children will switch off as they feel it does not concern them. However, my emotional intelligence persuaded me to take the feedback in board and try and implement in my lessons.
In order for me to master questoning I feel that I have to ask every student at least one question per lesson and plan what questions I am going to ask. I see the benefits of this but I also like to question as a behaviour management strategy. By this I mean if I direct a question at someone that is clearly not paying attention it will encourage them to pay attention. Moreover, as one of my targets, I have been told to keep talk time down so am confused as to how I am going to question every member of the class and try and talk less.
As with teaching in this modern era, outstanding lessons are impossible to hit all of the time and the framework makes it extremely challenging and time constraining to hit these elements. However, I personally feel that if you are asking appropriate and differentiated questions when necessary then you are doing a fantastic job of ensuring pupils understand and consolidating the learning.
