Category: Questioning

Questioning, Discussion and Student Feedback

Here are MiddleWeb’s 12 most popular articles about asking quality questions in class, scaffolding student discussions, and gathering formative feedback from kids through dialogue. Learn from Jackie Walsh, Valentina Gonzalez, Barbara Blackburn, Curtis Chandler and more!

Teaching Kids to Ask Questions That Matter

What’s the best way to boost student success and excitement for learning? Jackie Walsh believes the answer is to develop kids’ capacity as questioners by strengthening their skill and creating classrooms where learners experience the thrill of asking questions that matter.

The Awesome Power of Simple Questions

How can we stretch younger students’ excitement for inquiry into the middle school years? After tutoring a 9-year old this summer, MS teacher Mary Beth Nicklaus hopes the power of pursuing their simple questions will energize the quiet kids among her 6th graders this fall.

Weaving SEL Into Our Classroom Questioning

Traditional questioning routines can send unintended messages to some students that they are not “smart” enough to engage in classroom conversations, writes author and teaching expert Jackie Walsh. Learn how to weave SEL-friendly questioning into your daily practice.

How to Get Your Students to Ask More Questions

Student-generated questions put kids in the driver’s seat, advancing learning and engagement, writes expert Jackie Walsh. To encourage students to ask more questions, teachers need to grow a classroom culture where questioning is valued. Walsh shares five strategies that can help.

How to Improve Your Questioning Techniques

Good questioning helps students build understanding, but poor questioning can deter students from learning. How can you create great questions? Teaching expert and author Barbara Blackburn shares four strategies to involve students daily in effective class discussions.

In the Heat of Learning, Good Questioning Is Key

During classroom discussion, paired Think Times provide a break in the action that helps teachers use student responses to shape effective feedback to learners, says expert Jackie Walsh – provided we “explicitly instruct our students in the what, why, and how of these time-outs.”

Our Students’ Questions Should Be a Top Priority

Kids are always posing questions as they grow, but research shows that when they enter school, it’s mostly teachers doing the asking. Teacher educator Molly Ness offers six ideas for promoting questioning in our classrooms and letting student curiosity drive learning.

Students Learn from Inquiry, Not Interrogation

Jackie Walsh shares resources and strategies teachers can use to partner with students and create new roles and responsibilities in classroom questioning. Replace traditional “interrogation” with methods of inquiry that reveal understanding and strengthen learning.

Energize Your Classroom with Quality Questions

Quality questions are the “bait” that can hook students into deeper discussions and learning that sticks. Questioning expert Jackie Walsh shares a pair of videos and several templates that will help teachers plan a questioning process that pulls all students in.