Extending your students’ thinking

Helping students to think more deeply and improve the quality of their answers is a crucial part of your role. Extending your questioning by using hints and/or supplementary questions, as suggested above, will draw in those more reluctant learners. You could also ask more questions when a student gives a correct answer, and ask them what would happen if they pushed on a different part of the log to get them to suggest what might happen. To help you develop and extend your questioning skills, read Resource 1, ‘Using questioning to promote thinking’ – especially the section on ‘Improving quality of responses’, because this suggests different ways to explore students’ ideas by employing different strategies.

Another way to raise students’ participation is to give time to sequencing your questions so that they are progressive and extend thinking. If necessary, probe their answers further to ensure that they really do understand and can link it to other situations.