Solomon Senrick's List: Asking Questions--Resources

• Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956) provides another useful way to think about when and how to use questions in teaching. As the following table shows, Bloom identified six types of cognitive processes and ordered these according to the level of complexity involved. Ideally, you should combine questions that require “lower-order thinking” (often “closed” questions) to assess students’ knowledge and comprehension with questions that require “higher-order thinking” (often “open” questions) to assess students’ abilities to apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate.

• The Question Formulation Technique
   Dupuy, Muhammad, and many other teachers are using a step-by-step process that we and our colleagues at the Right Question Institute have developed called the Question Formulation Technique (QFT).
• Question Formulation Technique
   
   Produce Your Questions
   Four essential rules for producing your own questions:
   • Ask as many questions as you can.
   • Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer the questions.
   • Write down every question exactly as it is stated.
   • Change any statement into a question.
   
   Improve Your Questions
   • Categorize the questions as closed- or open-ended.
   • Name the advantages and disadvantages of each type of question.
   • Change questions from one type to another.
   
   Prioritize the Questions
   • Choose your three most important questions.
   • Why did you choose these three as the most important?
   
   Next Steps
   • How are you going to use your questions?
• Teachers can use the QFT at different points: to introduce students to a new unit, to assess students’ knowledge to see what they need to understand better, and even to conclude a unit to see how students can, with new knowledge, set a fresh learning agenda for themselves. The technique can be used for all ages.
  

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