16 Questioning techniques for teachers
In this guide
- Grades K-2: Building a foundation with curiosity-driven questions
- Grades 3-5: Expanding understanding through structured inquiry
- Grades 6-8: Utilizing targeted questioning to encourage analytical thought development
- Grades 9-12: Refine critical thinking, application, & creativity
Teaching through questioning can actively engage students in the learning process, deepen their understanding, and transform a disengaged classroom into a dynamic learning environment. Asking the right questions is key to igniting critical thinking and engaging students in meaningful intellectual exchange.
For example, as a high school art teacher, I made it my practice to do a critique mid-project as a formative assessment to gain context about the students’ artistic choices at that critical stage in the project development and to allow students to revise and rethink artistic decisions before completing the project.
A critique is a questioning technique called probing, and this strategy is useful for encouraging students to critically analyze their choices and ideas (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, 2024). Sometimes, critiques took place as a whole class critique, where peer feedback was critical.
Other times, critiques took place as a one-on-one conference with me and the student, allowing for direct feedback at the moment to questions like, “Why would you choose to do that?”, “How does this relate to what you are trying to accomplish?” and “Describe your artist’s intent and process in developing this piece.”
Questioning in teaching is a natural and intuitive part of lessons. Typically, teachers ask questions of students throughout the entire learning day, from the beginning of class until the end. However, questioning techniques are most effective when the questions align with the task and the learning objective.
There is an art to questioning effectively that includes implementing wait time and knowing when the lesson is the best time to question. Questioning will immediately transform passive learning into an interactive learning experience and is a cornerstone of effective teaching.
In this article, we will explore questioning techniques grounded in learning theory and tailored to specific grade levels and subjects. For each example question, the technique, theoretical framework, and application are provided.
Grades K-2: Building a foundation with curiosity-driven questions
Early education is often designed with the goal of sparking young learner’s curiosity. Educators can use questioning to guide these learners through the first steps of inquiry by exploring the power of asking “why” and “how” (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2019).
For example, when reading students a book during story time, a teacher can ask the students, “Why do you think the character did that?”. This type of questioning technique will not only keep students engaged and curious but will also nurture their predictive abilities and their imagination.
This same curiosity-driven question type takes shape differently when utilized in a math lesson. For example, students might be asked, “If you have two pennies and you get two more, how many pennies do you have now?” These questions are designed to be concrete and are important to the development of cognitive thinking in the early years. Such questions help students to link the concepts of math to real-world scenarios while cultivating curiosity and understanding.
English Language Arts (ELA) questioning techniques: Story comprehension
Exploratory Questions
Technique:
Ask students questions that will spark their curiosity. For example, “What do you think will happen next in the story? and “Why do you think the story character did that?”. These questions enhance students’ narrative skills, critical thinking, creativity, and predictive skills.
Theoretical Framework:
These questions are grounded in Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development. They provide scaffolding to support students’ understanding so that they can achieve higher cognitive stages later in learning (Vygotsky, 1978).
Application:
Use exploratory questions when conducting storytelling sessions. Exploratory questions draw students into the narrative and teach them how to anticipate and analyze the story as it develops.
Math questioning techniques: Quantitative reasoning
Rationale Questions
Technique:
An important questioning technique is asking students to explain their reasoning. This technique facilitates students’ learning to reason and articulate responses clearly (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2024). Ask students why they have made the choices they have made or why they are thinking the way they are. Use questions such as “Why do you think that?” “Why did you choose to solve the problem in this way?” and “What questions did you have when solving this problem?”
Theoretical Framework:
Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage supports the importance of students learning to reason at a young age (Piaget, 1952).
Application:
After students solve problems, have them answer these reflective questions and explain how they arrived at their answers.
Science questioning techniques: Exploratory inquiry
Inquiry Questions
Technique:
In the early years, to promote scientific investigation and curiosity in students, ask open-ended questions that allow prediction. For example, “What do you think might happen if these two liquids are mixed together?”
Theoretical Framework:
This type of inquiry supports active learning and a constructive process, which is aligned with a Constructivist theory model. The constructivist theory model is central to the idea that one learns from one’s experiences (Grotzer, n.d.).
Application:
During hands-on science experiments, this is a great way to make formative assessments of students’ abilities to predict and hypothesize.
Art questioning techniques: Curiosity & expression
Open-ended Questions
Technique:
Using open-ended and sensory questions helps students to make meaningful connections to the content they are learning. Guide students’ explorations of the materials with these types of questions. For example, “If this painting were to tell us its story, what would it say?” or “When you look at the colors in this artwork, what do you feel?”
Theoretical Framework:
Jean Piaget’s Developmental theory underpins this technique and emphasizes that children learn best when they interact with their environment (Piaget, 1952).
Application:
These types of questions not only help students to personally connect to the artworks, but they also encourage students to think about their own feelings in relation to art and expand their visual experience into a narrative and emotive one. During my student teaching before becoming an art educator, I completed part of my practicum in an elementary school.
One of my favorite activities was reading to the kindergarten students while they were in the art classroom. This was a great way to introduce them to color and shape using a story-driven framework.
I would pause mid-story and ask the students, “Can you find something in this classroom that is the same shape as the roof on the house in the story?” or “What word describes the shape of the roof of the house in the story?” Then we would move into the art lesson where we would explore shapes. These open-ended questions were used to not only stimulate students’ critical thinking but helped them learn to express their understanding.
Grades 3-5: Expanding understanding through structured inquiry
This age group is well-suited to handling more complex concepts, and so the questioning techniques need to evolve as well. For example, a third-grade teacher might ask students, “Why do you think the author of this book ended it this way?”
This type of question is analytical in nature, and it helps students to consider narrative structure as well as the author’s intent, expanding their comprehension and building on their critical thinking skills.
In subjects like math and science, questions should focus on the problem-solving process and be investigative. For example, questions like “How would you explain how you got this answer?” and “What changes happened after we mixed these two things together?” enhance experimental thinking.
ELA questioning techniques: Character analysis questions
Analytical Questions
Technique:
As students transition beyond the early years, they can handle questions that are more analytical and that ask them to compare/contrast the consequences of an action. For example, “What similarities do you see in the last two stories we read?” or “What was a consequence of the character’s action?” (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, 2024).
Theoretical Framework:
These types of questions reflect Bloom’s Taxonomy, which aims to facilitate students’ achieving higher-order thinking (Bloom, 1956).
Application:
Students can work individually or with peers to analyze stories and document their analysis using T-Charts.
Math questioning techniques: Conceptual understanding questions
Logic Questions
Technique:
Mathematical logic and problem-solving techniques often build on prior knowledge. Teachers can ask questions like, “Explain why this solution works.”
Theoretical Framework:
As students utilize prior knowledge to practice logical reasoning, they are optimizing their working memory to enrich and build their understanding, a process associated with Cognitive Load Theory (Clark, Nguyen, and Sweller, 2006).
Application:
At strategic mid-points in solving complex problems, pause and ask these types of questions to assess student understanding at the moment.
Social studies questioning techniques: Causal reasoning questions
Evaluative Questions
Technique:
Questions like, “What would you do differently?” and “Do you agree or disagree with the actions of the historical figure? Explain your response.” teach students how to analyze, develop informed opinions, and make sound judgments based on this process (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, 2024).
Theoretical Framework:
These types of questions reflect Bloom’s Taxonomy, which aims to facilitate students’ achieving higher-order thinking (Bloom, 1956).
Application:
This is a great way to start a whole-class discussion in a history class. As students analyze, form opinions, and make judgments, they deepen their understanding of history and the complexities of the past.
Art questioning techniques: Developing critical thinking
Analytical Questions
Technique:
By third grade, students are able to observe details and discuss them more deeply. Questions like, “How did these two artists treat this subject matter differently?” or “Looking at this texture, how do you think the artist might have created this effect?” will facilitate students’ comparing and contrasting (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, 2024).
Theoretical Framework:
These types of questions reflect Bloom’s Taxonomy, which aims to facilitate students’ achieving higher-order thinking (Bloom, 1956).
Application:
Show students two different artists’ renditions of a similar concept and have them compare it. For example, Constantin Brancusi’s The Kiss and Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss sculpture.
Grades 6-8: Utilizing targeted questioning to encourage analytical thought development
This is a critical period in a student’s learning stage. During this phase, students build their academic growth by establishing stronger study habits, enhancing their critical thinking skills, and expanding their subject knowledge. Questioning techniques at this stage should challenge students, nurture their academic growth, and facilitate their deeper engagement with the content.
In ELA, students in these grade levels might participate in a critique of their writing, while math students might work on problems that relate to real-world applications as they find practical uses for the math problems they have been assigned. In science, students might explore hypothetical scenarios through questioning, like, “If there were less gravity, what might happen?”
ELA questioning techniques: Thematic analysis questions
Synthesizing Questions
Technique:
Teachers should encourage middle school students to delve deeper into the books they are reading in class by asking, “What themes can you find in this story?” Because a theme can be a difficult concept for students to grasp, another strategy for questioning gives the students an example of a theme by asking, “The theme of the story is friendship. What does it mean to be a good friend?” This is a great connection mechanism that ties the literature theme, the character development, and what is going on in students’ lives together.
Theoretical Framework:
These types of questions reflect Bloom’s Taxonomy, which aims to facilitate students’ achieving higher-order thinking (Bloom, 1956).
Application:
Students can work individually or with peers to analyze stories and discern between themes and main ideas in a story using T-Charts.
Math questioning techniques: Application questions
Real-World Questions
Technique:
Application questions aim to have students solve real-life problems by applying the learning from the math problem to an issue in real life. These types of questions engage students in using multiple higher-order thinking skills. For example, a teacher might ask, “How might you use geometry to solve this everyday problem?” bridging the gap between theoretical and practical application.
Theoretical Framework:
These types of questions reflect Bloom’s Taxonomy, which aims to facilitate students’ achieving higher-order thinking (Bloom, 1956).
Application:
After a hands-on activity, like building a geometric structure (a tower out of toothpicks), have students reflect on how they used geometry to create strength in the tower (Khan Academy, 2024).
Social studies questioning techniques: Critical thinking questions
Analytical Questions
Technique:
Questions like, “Explain how this event changed our country,” help students to both analyze and evaluate the consequences and impacts of historical events. This facilitates students gaining a deeper understanding of the events, history as a whole, and how the past influences the present (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, 2024).
Theoretical Framework:
These types of questions reflect Bloom’s Taxonomy, which aims to facilitate students’ achieving higher-order thinking (Bloom, 1956).
Application:
In classroom discussions of important historical events, these questions help students to consider the broader implications and overall long-term effects that events have on society as a whole. For example, analyzing the long-term effects of the Civil War can lead to a discussion about current social change and societal norms.
Art questioning techniques: Interpretation skill development
Hypothetical Questions
Technique:
Middle school students delve into the abstract as they interpret and hypothesize in the art classroom. Teachers might ask, “If you were the artist of this piece, what might you have done differently? Tell us Why” or “What do you think the artist might have been feeling when they created this artwork? Support your answer with evidence from the artwork.”
Modeling this process is a great way to set expectations. For example, a teacher might answer the question first, stating, “I would have removed the diagonal lines out of the piece because then the focus would be on just the cat since it is the brightest color in the composition.” (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, 2024).
Theoretical Framework:
Whole-class critiques of this nature are supported by Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, which highlights the importance of social interaction in learning. It is an appropriate framework for helping students move slightly higher in their current abilities by allowing peers’ knowledge to help foster their own (Vygotsky, 1978).
Application:
When students interpret the meaning of art, they not only build on their critical thinking skills but also foster the growth of their creativity (Barrett, 2002). Have students gather around an artwork or project it on the whiteboard. Begin by asking them what they see and then move on to asking them about the meanings behind what they see.
Grades 9-12: Refine critical thinking, application, & creativity
Students are beginning to build the foundation necessary to be successful in college and future careers. The complexity of questioning techniques should reflect the preparation for this transition and build on the skill sets that were developed in lower grade levels.
This means the emphasis shifts to a refinement of critical thinking skills, further development of application skills and pushing the boundaries of creativity to encourage growth in this area.
ELA questioning techniques: Debate questions
Open-ended Questions
Technique:
A classroom debate question is typically designed to generate a lively discussion and allow for multiple viewpoints to be shared. These open-ended questions encourage students to analyze, think critically, evaluate, and articulate a position, either for or against, both clearly and convincingly.
Theoretical Framework:
Friere’s critical pedagogy highlights the importance of students using dialogue and questioning to develop critical thinking (Friere, 1970).
Application:
Students are encouraged to think differently as they hear and consider different viewpoints in a debate. Often these activities promote deep engagement with the learning materials and peers. They can also help develop a student’s abilities to strategize and persuade. For example, students might debate a current issue in the news or whether a character in the book made a good choice in their actions.
Math questioning techniques: Project-based inquiry questions
Student Generated Questions
Technique:
In this line of questioning, students take the driver’s seat and lead the learning by asking questions, investigating patterns, and confronting challenges. Teachers need to facilitate students’ learning how to ask deep and relevant questions. Typically, student-led questions occur after a Teacher-guided demonstration. For example, students might ask why a certain formula is more appropriate for a real-world problem than another formula (Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, 2024).
Theoretical Framework:
Dewey’s theory of experiential learning supports this questioning technique as students learn by doing. (Dewey, 1910).
Application:
Students might be tasked with a problem that has real-world implications. For example, they may be assigned a project to develop a roller coaster and provided with a list of formulas that will be necessary to solve it. Students can then create an inquiry list of important questions to ask as they delve into the challenge. The questions can be shared in a whole-class session, which allows other students to gain insight from the questions of their peers.
Science questioning techniques: Research-based inquiry questions
Scientific Method Questions
Technique:
Students may be tasked with designing an experiment to test a theory, and the teacher might ask, “What would be the experiment to test this theory?”
Theoretical Framework:
The scientific method is a cornerstone of science education. It promotes students’ use of hypothesis testing and experimentation to reach a conclusion (Kuhn, 2012).
Application:
In a chemistry class, students might conduct experiments to confirm existing theories. Using the scientific method, they can document their understanding of the concept and their analysis and findings of the experiment.
Art questioning techniques: Portfolio review
Artist Intent Questions
Technique:
When I conducted portfolio reviews with my advanced placement art students, I asked questions that gave me context and understanding of the process behind their artistic creations. I would ask my students questions like, “What inspired this artwork?” “What artistic vision are you trying to communicate?” and “How does this artwork reflect your artist’s intentions?” These questions led my students to think reflectively about the reasons for the choices they had made and articulate their creative processes.
Theoretical Framework:
This self-reflective portfolio critique is supported by Elliot Eisner’s concept of cognitive pluralism, which recognizes that there are multiple forms of understanding in art education. Art education is not just about the art techniques but also about the interpretation and meaning-making that occurs when creating art (Eisner, 2002).
Application:
I typically meet with my students one-on-one so that we can focus on deeper engagement with their portfolios and discuss their artistic journey in depth in real-time and with immediate feedback. But small group portfolio reviews are also a great way for students to practice the skill of presenting and responding to peer feedback. For each piece, students tell the story and intent behind what they have created. By discussing their intent, students learn to align their execution to their artistic goals and artist intent.
Conclusion
Harnessing the power of effective questioning is essential to developing a stimulating learning environment that fosters students’ thinking critically, actively, creatively, and cognitively.
It not only promotes these key developmental skills but is also the best pedagogical practice. By crafting appropriate questions not only for each educational stage but also for each subject and learning objective, teachers can significantly impact, enrich, and enhance students’ learning experiences.
References
- Barrett, Terry. 2002. Interpreting Art: Reflecting, Wondering and Responding. 1st ed. McGraw-Hill.
- Bloom, Benjamin S. 1956. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longmans, Green.
- Bronson, Martha. 2000. Self-Regulation in Early Childhood: Nature and Nurture. New York. Guilford Press.
- Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning. 2024. Questioning Strategies, University of Illinois. Accessed July 20, 2024. https://citl.illinois.edu/citl-101/teaching-learning/resources/teaching-strategies/questioning-strategies.
- Clark, Ruth C., Frank Nguyen, and John Sweller. 2006. Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
- Dewey, John. 1910. How We Think. Boston: D.C. Heath.
- Eisner, Elliott W. 2002. The Arts and Creation of Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
- Grotzer, Shannon. April 13, 2023. The Keys to Inquiry. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Accessed July 20, 2024. https://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/Inquiry/inquiry1text.html.
- Khan Academy. 2024. Mathematics – Real Life Applications. Accessed July 20, 2024. https://support.khanacademy.org/hc/en-us/community/posts/12705416327565-Mathematics-Real-life-application.
- Kuhn, Thomas S. 2012. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- National Association for the Education of Young Children. February 2019. “Asking Questions that Stretch Children’s Thinking.” Teaching Young Children 12, no. 3. Accessed July 20, 2024. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/tyc/feb2019/asking-questions-stretch-children%27s-thinking.
- National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 2024. Asking Questions and Promoting Discourse. Accessed July 20, 2024. https://www.nctm.org/Conferences-and-Professional-Development/Tips-for-Teachers/Asking-Questions-and-Promoting-Discourse/.
- Piaget, Jean. 1952. The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International Universities Press.
- Skinner, B.F. 1968. The Technology of Teaching. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
- Vygotsky, Lev. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
NaJuana Lee
briefcase iconSr Director of Learning and Development | Curriculum Design Expert
Dr. NaJuana P. Lee has a unique blend of expertise combining over 10 years of experience in both secondary and post-secondary education and 15+ years as a curriculum development expert. Her contributions have empowered teachers worldwide with culturally competent, innovative and engaging curriculum and teaching materials designed to facilitate all students succeeding.
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