The importance of questioning
Questioning matters across your school. It is the skill that underpins so much of what teachers do. Teachers assess, challenge and prompt learning by asking questions. Where teaching is concerned, the use of questioning is one of the most effective tools for improving your school. It can:
Questioning is the only stand-alone teaching skill named in Ofsted’s School Inspection Handbook. Inspectors are guided to assess the impact of questioning on assessment and the extent to which questions challenge and set demanding expectations.
Getting more for your ask
Despite its importance, there is a frequently observed truth about questioning: teachers ask great questions, but they don’t always get the responses their questions deserve. Active Questioning offers a solution to this problem.
It’s in the ask. By adjusting how you ask questions, you get better responses. This is because the technique used to ask the question is as important as the question itself. Active Questioning helps you to ‘get more for your ask’.
Good answers are yours for the asking. There are no secrets to effective questioning. Where teachers have applied the simple approaches described in this resource, they have seen a better response for their ask (and inspectors have noticed too).