Planning for questioning

• Ensure examples of effective questions are included in your planning.
• Use resources such as Bloom's Taxonomy to ensure you are asking higher order questions.
• Share key questions at the beginning of the lesson and base the plenary on these questions .
• Stop during the lesson to check whether these questions are being answered.
• Ensure there is a balance between asking and telling.

Ask open questions:

• Make sure some questions have more than one answer.
• Follow up answers with words and questions like 'Explain'. 'What makes you think that?' to provide greater challenge, encourage speaking at greater length and depth.
• Ask pupils to set their own questions.
• Use techniques such as 'what do you know about?', 'what questions will help you find out?', 'how will you find out?'

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behaviour important in learning. Bloom found that over 95% of the test questions students encounter require them to think only at the lowest possible level – the recall of information.

Bloom identified six levels within the cognitive domain, from the simple recall or recognition of facts, as the lowest level, through increasingly more complex and abstract mental levels, to the highest order which is classified as evaluation. Verb examples that represent intellectual activity on each level are listed here:

• Knowledge: arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorise, name, order, recognise, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce, state.
• Comprehension: classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognise, report, restate, review, select, translate.
• Application: apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatise, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practice, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write.
• Analysis: analyse, appraise, calculate, categorise, compare, contrast, criticise, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test.
• Synthesis: arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, manage, organize, plan, prepare, propose, set up, write.
• Evaluation: appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose compare, defend estimate, judge, predict, rate, core, select, support, value, evaluate.

When designing content, the taxonomy can be used as part of a holistic approach to learning and development, rather than as a linear model.

See Bloom's Rose [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .

As teachers we tend to ask questions in the ‘knowledge’ category 80–90% of the time. These questions are not bad, but using them all the time is. Try to utilise a higher order level of questions. These questions require much more ‘brain power’ and a more extensive and elaborate answer.

Look at Bloom's critical thinking across the curriculum 2, focusing on the diagnostic questions. Also look at Bloom's taxonomy in practice –  a hierarchy of thinking skills. The Bloom's levels map easily to National Curriculum levels for ICT and share the same language.