Research School Network: Ask more questions, get more answers Bradley Thompson, Assistant Headteacher, Pakefield High School

It is easy to assume, in teaching, that there is a directly proportional relationship between the amount of questions asked in a lesson and the quality of the learning that takes place. However, merely asking more and getting more is not a metric for improved or deeper understanding. From personal experience in the classroom, an answer may often be right and praise given before moving on, when so much more could be made of that dialogic interaction. Indeed, what often separates an acceptable student response from a great one is the student’s ability to explain and clearly communicate their ideas or answer unaided. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) is a helpful starting point here (what a learner can do independently vs what they can do with help) – expert understanding follows on from novice, with the student gradually developing the ability to do the task independently. Questions can be vital in helping teachers to identify a student’s or classes’ ZPD by providing clues about misunderstandings and misconstructions (Pope, 2013, p. 12). But how can it help develop the learner?

If teachers are mindful of a student’s ZPD, dialogic teaching can be used to assist learner development towards ​‘expert’ whereby the teacher skilfully extends student’s thinking through questioning, so that answers are habitually elaborated on as opposed to simply being received. In this way, the teacher can build a dialogue through on-going questions and answers to further deepen and broaden student understanding (Alexander, 2017). Strategies founded on the science of learning such as elaboration and elaborative interrogation can be used to achieve this. ​“Understanding occurs when students elaborate a memory by adding details to it and integrating it with existing knowledge (Weinstein and Sumeracki, 2019, p. 102). Indeed, elaboration is thought to be so fundamental to learning that ​“If a process did not improve learning and memory then we conclude elaboration did not occur, or did not occur enough” (Kirpicke & Smith, 2012).

As teachers we should therefore be planning questioning focussed on asking students ​“what have you understood? Opposed to ​“have you understood?”. The intention of this subtle yet important shift in emphasis is to encourage deeper explanation or elaboration (Sherrington, 2019, p.33).

Extending through elaborative interrogation and follow up questions is all well and good, but how can we foster in our students the characteristic of an expert? How can we get them doing it on their own to answer increasingly independently?

A useful strategy for changing our questioning dialogue to encourage independence is ​‘Say it again better’ from Tom Sherrington’s Teaching walkthrus series.

The steps for say it again better are:
- Ask a student a question, through cold calling for example,
- Acknowledge the first response positively but then unpick. How we can we improve this answer?
- Give formative feedback to make it clear to the students what should be added, such as greater detail, using certain key terms or even amending the structure of the answer. The teacher could possibly even model a good answer or the element of the answer that needs improving at this point or ask another student to.
- Invite the student to have another go on their own without support to ​“say it again better”
- Respond to the improved response with specific praise about what has improved ​“well done, you’ve now used the correct key terms, much better”. It may even be appropriate to repeat the process again at this point to elicit a much, much improved response, particularly if the original answer was very ​‘embyrotic’ and you want to guide the student through several stages of improvement, e.g. Use of key terms followed by depth of explanation (Sherrington & Caviglioli, 2020 pp. 89 – 89).

By questioning in this way, not only is the student being exposed to elaboration to build on their answer and therefore deepen their understanding, but they are being encouraged to do it on their own, to have another go. To answer better. To be the expert.

One note of caution of course is consideration about student participation and willingness to want to constantly have another go. It is important that teacher dispositions and the associated classroom environments are conducive to a culture where mistakes are seen as golden learning opportunities. Guy Claxton’s ​‘Learning Power Approach’ encourages teachers to ​“lay bare the innards of learning”. He writes: ​“we must not fall prey to the stupid idea that academic ability means getting it right first time, always, preferably without breaking a sweat” (Claxton, 2018, p. 139). One way of cultivating this mentality in our students is to show mistakes and drafts in classroom displays. For example, rather than having let’s say five finished pieces of work up on display, have perhaps one or two pieces with all the notes, drafts, marking and feedback and ​‘failed’ attempts in a timeline, put on show for learners to see. Use of displays or making references in our lessons to famous masterpieces and the associated attempts, practices and drafts can also help students to realise the importance of improving through elaboration. ​“Look at the notebooks of scientists, poets and artists, and see half-baked thought processes that eventually led to their amazing discoveries and accomplishments” (Claxton, 2018, p. 139).

Undoubtedly, asking more questions of our students is a very worthwhile thing to do, but asking more questions to develop novices to experts; instilling in our students an accurate notion of how learning really happens, and encouraging students to improve their answers by elaborating to ​‘say it again better’ is an evidence-informed sequence of practice that should ensure questioning dialogue is as helpful as possible to the difficult and complex process of learning, and not simply a formative assessment tool for the teacher. 

References
- Claxton, G. (2018), The learning power approach. Teaching learners to teach themselves: Crown House Publishing
- Karpicke, J. and Smith, M. (2012), Separate mnemonic effects of retrieval practice and elaborative encoding. Journal of memory and language.
- Pope, G. (2013), Questioning technique: Teachers’ Pocketbooks
- Sherrington, T. and Caviglioli, O. (2020) Teaching Walkthrus. Five step guides to instructional coaching: John Catt Educational
- Sherrington, T. (2019) Rosenshine’s principles in action: John Catt Educational