Cognitive Science tells us that explicit teaching and modelling is the greatest skill of a teacher to ensure pupil progress, and questioning is its closest companion and the most powerful tool for deepening learning. Far from being a simple check at the end of a lecture, effective questioning serves as a versatile set of instructional practices that research has shown to be fundamental to student achievement.
💡Misconception: Teachers should ask a large number of questions in every lesson
Research into the practices of expert teachers — those whose students made the highest gains on achievement tests — reveals that they spend more than half of their class time lecturing, demonstrating, and asking a large number of questions. This is not a random activity; it is a calculated effort to help students rehearse and connect new information to prior learning, which is essential for moving knowledge into long-term memory. However, without understanding the why of questioning it can be a hindrance rather than a help to learner progress. Teachers must have an astute understanding of the purposes of questions, the what to ask, when to ask and how to ask to maximize the impact on learner knowledge, skills and understanding. It is not the number of questions that make the difference, rather the quality and application of questioning and the responsiveness of the teacher to pupil needs.
From a cognitive science perspective, questioning is a form of retrieval practice. When students are asked to retrieve information, it strengthens the interconnections in their long-term memory, eventually leading to automaticity, which frees up precious space in their limited working memory for more complex problem-solving.
From an assessment for learning perspective, it is a powerful tool to gather information about individual learner starting points, their current and developing knowledge and understanding both academically and as a tool to measure the metacognitive development and mindset of all learners.
💡Misconception: Questioning is used at the start of every lesson as a recap of prior learning and to check current understanding
Questioning is a multi-tool for every stage of the lesson
Effective teachers utilize questioning as a dynamic toolbox, selecting specific “tools” based on the needs of the moment:
• Establishing Starting Points: Rather than just asking at the start of a lesson, questioning is used to forensically look for gaps in learning and identify prior knowledge that must be activated to support new “schemas” or patterns of knowledge.
• Checking for Understanding: Master teachers frequently stop to check for understanding by asking students to summarize procedures, explain their processes, or state whether they agree or disagree with a peer’s answer. Many use Hinge questions as a powerful tool to find out if learners are ready for the next steps in learning. Here you can listen to Dylan Wiliam’s summary of how to use Hinge Questions effectively.
• Purposefully making errors of deliberate mistakes: This allows teachers to address misconceptions early before they are practiced and “filed” incorrectly in long-term memory.
• Guiding Practice: Questioning is a vital component of scaffolding. By providing question stems (e.g., “How are X and Y alike?”) or prompts (who, what, why), teachers support students as they transition from novice learners to independent thinkers.
• Deepening Thinking: Research suggests that deep processing (like “scuba diving” into a topic rather than “snorkelling” on the surface) makes learning more durable. This is achieved through probing questions that require students to defend a position, provide evidence, or connect examples. For further reading see Deepening Meaning and Learning(Deans for Impact)
• Embedding learning into the long term memory through the use of elaborative interrogation techniques or by attaching emotion to new learning. In his Ask the Cognitive Science article Daniel Willingham(American Educator | Winter 2008 – 2009) discusses how ‘memory is the residue of thought’ and how to use questions as a tool for thinking about meaning is in order to transfer material into memory
💡Mistake: Teachers pose a verbal question and look for the correct answer
Rosenshine(American Educator | Spring 2012) says the wrong way is:
“To ask only a few questions, call on volunteers to hear (usually correct) answers, then assume the entire class has learned from hearing the volunteers’ responses. Another error is to ask “Are there any questions?” and if there aren’t any, assume everyone understands” or assume everyone understands and that there is no need to check understanding, so repeating points will be sufficient.’
To make questioning an effective tool, teachers must move beyond the “hands-up” approach, which often only checks the understanding of a few volunteers. Instead, research-backed strategies prioritize active participation for all students:
1. Cold Calling and “No Hands Up”: This ensures the teacher can check the entire class’s progress, not just those who feel confident.
2. Mini-Whiteboards: These allow for a quick, visual assessment of every learner’s response simultaneously.
3. Think-Pair-Share: This provides necessary wait time, allowing students to access their long-term memory and rehearse their thoughts before speaking.
4. Dialogic Teaching: This approach trains students to reason, discuss, and argue, focusing on the quality of classroom talk to develop higher-order thinking.
5. Questioning approaches can take a multitude of forms. The learner should be doing most of the work. Questions can be posed on cards, as quizzes and games such as TABOO, through question circles and the use of ped tech.
💡Mistake: Teachers should plan the questions in advance and stick to the script
The ultimate aim of this questioning “toolbox” is to obtain a high success rate. When questioning is used effectively to check responses, provide feedback, and reteach, when necessary, it ensures that students are rehearsing and practicing correctly rather than reinforcing errors.
When questioning is used to challenge students, deepening meaning and thinking and as a metacognitive tool to help learners remember more, we begin to see rapid and sustained progress in lessons.
By understanding questioning not as a single task, but as a sophisticated set of instructional tools, teachers can more effectively bridge the gap between initial starting points and true student mastery.
Tom Sherrington (2019) Rosenshine's Principles in Action
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