Questioning

Questioning Techniques:

• Directed questioning leading into students developing each other’s answers: rather than the teacher developing an individual student’s answer, the teacher asks another student to develop the answer given. This can support student engagement and contribute to ensuring ‘no student is left undisturbed.’

• Students keeping a notebook/list of questions that emerge from the lesson. Students to discuss questions with each other to try and come up with answers. Teacher can move around the room and listen to the discussions to assess learners’ progress (could be used as a plenary).

Ideas for encouraging students to find the answers to their own questions...

The Stuck Menu

Students choose 3 strategies from ‘The Stuck Menu’ before putting up their hand to ask for help...

1. Record what you have tried and thequestion you have and move on.

2. Consult the student-led question and answer board (students pose a question on the board and if someone has the answer, they add it to the board).

3. Review previous learning and notes.

4. Use a text book/internet/smart-phone

5. Ask someone else in your group.

Plenary• As a plenary, students can write down

one thing they are confused about from the lesson on a post-it note.

• Students will then post these on the whiteboard.

• The teacher or a student can then choose some post-it notes at random and these questions can then be posed to the rest of the class to answer.

• As a result, students are learning to use each other as a resource rather depending upon the teacher.

Differentiation

Differentiated group work: an example...

• Each student has an allocated (differentiated) role, to ensure maximum engagement and participation.

• Each group deals with different material, could be differentiated according to ability/learning style/behavioural needs.

Task: analysing a section of a text for English Literature

Student 1: the summariser

Student 2: the analyst

Student 3: the reviewer/interpreter

Student 4: the contextualiser

All linked to a specific assessment objective. Differing roles/instructions for each student.

Unlocking potential with language (Jim Smith’s The Lazy Teacher’s Handbook: developing an independent learning structure)

• ‘What have you forgotten to do?’

• ‘If you were not stuck, what would you do?’

• ‘Try something different...’

• ‘If I gave you a million pounds to be unstuck, what would you do?’

• ‘What could you do to help yourself?’

Scaffolding Scaffolding is as

important at Key Stage 5 as in other years.

Don’t assume that just because students are studying at A Level they are all of an equal ability.

Teacher Modelling

Always model a task before asking/when asking students to complete a similar task.

By limiting failure in this way - through leading by example - students will be more comfortable with the task and in turn, more confident in their ability.

This should result in a higher quality

Writing Analytical Paragraphs

Remember to ...• Begin with a topic sentence.

• Embed quotations into sentences in a way that still allows them to make grammatical sense.

• Lead into a quotation with terminology and then pull the quotation apart further through close analysis, applying (where possible) additional terminology.

Example ParagraphThis extract from the novel ‘Devil May Care’ supports a number of gender stereotypes, most notably that men are strong, energetic and violent with an attraction to fast cars. The foregrounding of the plosive monosyllabic “Bond” emphasises his power and importance, adding to his ‘action man’ status. This is enhanced by a lexical set of movement created by the dynamic verbs “hit”, “swerved”, “kicked” and “wrenched” which show Bond to be full of energy. In addition, the adverb