 One Ross here. Good evening. I hope you're well. It's October already. People watching here in the UK. The dark nights are drawing in. So I hope you're well. Just like to talk to you about questioning. Probably the most frequently used teacher instructional intervention in our classrooms on a day-to-day basis. And one of the earliest historical accounts that at least I can try to find in some initial research often dates back to Socrates. And I've got a little bit of research here before I share some strategies. So here it is here. Let me just pop that up on my screen. So a little case study written 2009. And what it is kind of suggesting is that questions are process that obviously helps students or helps teachers ask questions, help us reflect, help students think critically about subject matter. I guess the question is how many questions do we pose in day-to-day lessons? What makes a good question? Are all our questions effective, etc. There's a study that they reference in here by Levin and Long in 1981 that reported that teachers ask as many as three to four hundred questions daily. So simple calculations. That's 60 questions every lesson. If you do the maths 190 days in an academic year, teachers could be asking up to 190,000 questions in one academic year. So my new book, Guide to Question, which is published next September. Part of the research that I'm kickstarting this term is to visit classrooms and schools across the UK. So in my newsletter, I'm going to be putting out a call to teachers that are interested in taking part in some simple observations to tally questions that are posed and then the constructs of questions, how they're framed. So if you're interested, I'll be publishing that shortly. But let me just put three resources up for everyone for you to grab. So the first one is 10 questioning strategies. We know questioning is a key tool for teachers and through questioning, teachers can gain an insight into what people know, that phrase check for understanding. So I'll go through the first five on here very briefly and I'll sign post two more resources for you. And the first one there on the screen, make a statement, ask the students to agree or disagree with you, justifying their response. For example, I believe chickens used to fly or they can fly is an interesting way to get some questioning taking place in the classroom. Idea two, that collective response, particularly with group work, it's important to sign roles. So you scribe, you do the talking, you do the reporting back, nominating different students, particularly vulnerable students. So there's a collective responsibility, a collective response for the class. Another useful technique scan the room. We do it with through nonverbal signals, through a body language. It helps us develop a secure overview of all our pupils who's in front of us. It's personal, but I would probably advocate refrain from maybe stating a student's name, keep the question, keep the person's name back, pose the question, create the conditions that ensures all students think about your question, not just one. Then the fourth one, paraphrase. So this helps with cognition cognitive load. As you walk around, pose a question, rephrase what a student says. So the rest of the students understand, you might want to add more detail, more knowledge or paraphrase and make it a bit more student friendly. This also ensures all students hear the key information, particularly when a student might whisper. Number five, probably the worst thing a teacher can use in the classroom. And I have been guilty of this thousands of times. Avoid who can tell me or who wants to explain at all costs. It's a simple way of giving the students the option to opt out. No, sir. Sorry, I can't tell you. Miss, I don't know what to do. We need to try and avoid those don't know scenarios. So instead specify a group or individual names or insist on a response. We've got five more here at the bottom. So number six, the why or how, that self explanation, the elaboration, all research informed study skills. This keeps the discussion moving, elicits deeper evaluation in the students are really important and easy fix. Seven, multiple choice. It's important to make the choices very hard to improve and retrieval strength. So for example, if I ask you what tomato ketchup up is, and I give you the choices, a sauce, a star, a vegetable or a plant, I make the choices too easy. And I don't support stronger retention. So it's important to ensure practice exercises such as multiple choice have desirable difficulties included. Number eight here on the screen, making mistakes. So it's important for us to deliberately model the process, asking students to prove what's right, what's wrong, what's the best way to do it. Not many teachers know about the research on cognitive apprenticeship. I've blogged about this a lot. I've also shared some resources on my site in my new book guide to memory. I've written about it and in the research that I've gathered probably 10,000 bits of data or so from teachers that took part in the research, very few are comfortable or know what it is. Whereas cognitive load theory, we're very familiar with this. So do look up cognitive apprenticeship, particularly in the reference to number eight here on the screen. Number nine, vary the thinking. So vary the types of questions. I'm going to give you good 12 ideas in a moment. So hang on. The question matrix on my website, probably the most popular resource. However, when I visit schools, so this is moving outside of the Twitter bubble particularly, not many people have seen it or heard of it. And it's hard for us all to keep up with lots of resources. Number 10, too much or too little. I guess the key thing I've learned from all the things that I've been reading is the importance to pause. So think cognitive load theory, plan key questions, check for understanding and illicit thinking, draw it out. This data should shape the direction of the lesson and what should happen next. So there's your first 10 ideas. You can download this with lots more information behind the scenes if you're interested. The second resource I have for you here is seven ways to design some questioning strategies. So let me just put that up here on the screen. So the first one is designing task-based questions. These are designed to answer the question. So for example, an explicit question with a task. So an example of some questions like this might include how many pockets are there on a snooker table? Why does the earth rotate through night and day? Can you walk from London to Berlin, etc. So that gets straight off into an activity. A thesis-type question. These times of questions are to pose a hypothesis to illicit thinking and perhaps a position or a view. So for example, who did the Romans fight with? Should Britain have left Europe? Is misinformation a made-up theory? As an example, question three, meta-type questions. So meta-type questions here, philosophical concepts which lead to further questions. Probably one of my favorites. So is breathing clean air free? Why is an orange named the color orange, but a banana not named yellow? Did the chicken come first? Did the tin or the tin open or come first? Those types of questions. This is a really good one for teachers in classrooms. The start-set research questions. So you start the lesson, kids research, then they set it to end and report back. So for example, we might say to kick-start a debate or to help provoke students' thoughts as they leave a classroom or pose to illicit inquiry during or after the lesson. Perhaps it could be anecdotal or for example, why did President Donald Trump not attend Biden's inauguration? So you could go off and do the research and report back. The next idea. I've got three more for you before I finish off. Empirical questions. So these types of questions are largely factual statements that require checking. So some examples, how many borrow pens are there in your classroom? How many moons does Jupiter have? Is a panda bear more black or more white in color? And students tend to really enjoy those. Multiple choices are already mentioned, so they need to be tricky rather than easy. So they're good for setting an agenda, great for starting a lesson. They're good for suggesting things that students may not ask themselves. You can hide the options before revealing the choices. You can include silly options, but I would try to avoid this because you're not going to improve retrieval strength. And you can give two possible options also that could be right answers, which are great for discussions throughout the lesson. The last one, you're implicit or explicit your closed questions. So kind of statements are obviously good here. So some examples, what is a letter or is A, the letter A, is A a letter or what is a teacher or is Ross McGill a teacher? So other ways of thinking about opening closed questions. Now, five ways to design some tantalizing teasers. So great ways to start lessons off with some good question methods. The what ifs a great question format designed to query the norm. So some examples might be here. What if there was only one religion? What if there was no color blue? What if all countries were islands? So what ifs a great way to almost act a little dumb in classroom to get students started to translate from student to teacher to start giving you back the answers, the things that they know. Second idea here, alternative uses. So these are really good for as a question format designed to consider differences. So some examples might be how many uses can you think of a paperclip? What could I use this biropen for as an example? Other things, how many uses can you think of for a car tire, for a brick, for a slipper, just change the product? That's an endless strategy. So real questions, obviously these are very abstract. So obviously we have to be cautious and consider the age of the children that you're working with. So some things that you might want to consider, obviously context is key, but what would the floor say to the ceiling if they could speak to each other? How would you wash an angry emotion? Is giraffe a good name for a giraffe? Could a dream dream all sorts? So probably slightly older students, not exclusively older, year six upwards perhaps, shoot me down if I'm wrong, but obviously they can get a bit more complex as you can go up the school years. Big questions. So these ones, philosophical questions, why isn't the earth called water if it's two-thirds water and a third land? Is it possible for fish to drown? Can a shadow feel pain? So there's lots here in this resource and you can get these all on my website. The last one, would you rather, some of you might have played this on a Friday night in the pub. So these questions are designed to elicit making choices. So would you rather be a fly or a butterfly? Would you rather be a noun or an adjective? Would you rather play 12 instruments or 12 languages? Or would you rather be putting your feet up or watching Ross on a live stream? So I'm going to leave it there. My videos every Monday night just to keep you updated with some ideas, some new resources or things you might not have tried or share this video with a colleague. And let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see. I'm on my travels to schools in Belfast and in Poole over the next few days, as well as grappling with my new book, Guide to Memory. I shall see you soon. Thanks for as ever for watching. I'll see you next Monday. Have a great week. Bye for now.