Best Practice

A questioning classroom: The purpose and timing of your questions

Pedagogy Lesson planning Retrieval practice & metacognition
In this five-part series, Matt Bromley looks at how we can create a questioning classroom. In part four, he explores the purposes of our questions, timing our questions effectively, how we can ‘pass a question around the classroom’, and questions as a form of scaffolding
Image: Adobe Stock

So far in this series, we have seen how asking questions can be a great way to encourage active participation and critical thinking. But it is important to use questions purposefully.

Asking too many questions without a clear purpose or without giving students adequate time to respond can potentially have negative effects on the learning environment. Here are some ways to ensure questions have purpose:

Creating a questioning classroom: A five-part SecEd series

Matt Bromley has also appeared on an episode of the SecEd Podcast focused on great teacher questioning in the secondary school classroom. Find this episode here.

 

A question of timing

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