Transcript Document

Citrus: Literacy, Learners, and Leaders
Questioning: A Strategy to
Promote Critical Thinking and
Improve Student Achievement
Cindy Hayslip
Margaret Williams
7/18/2015
Citrus County Schools, Florida
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Literacy is…
 Listening
 Viewing
 Speaking
 Thinking
 Reading
 Writing
 Expressing using multiple symbol systems
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Practice the Non-negotiables
 Use the 7 processes of literacy
 Read to and with students
 Teach, model, and practice key strategies (one of
which is questioning) and graphic organizers
 Students read by themselves with accountability
 Print-rich literacy environment
 K-1 phonics, phonemic awareness
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 “The most important questions don’t
seem to have ready answers…. An
answer is an invitation to stop
thinking…” A question is the “master
key to understanding.”
Stephens and Brown, 2000
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Questioning …
Improves comprehension by:
 Helping monitor comprehension
 Relating what is to be learned with what is already
known
 Clarifying confusion
 Focusing attention on what must be learned
 Strengthening a reader’s dialogue with text
 Developing active thinking while reading
 Giving a purpose to reading
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What the Research Says
 Students’ understanding and recall can be
shaped by the types of questions to which
they become accustomed (Duke and
Pearson, 2002)
 Students’ generation of their own questions
about text improves overall comprehension
(Yopp, 1988; Raphael and Pearson, 1985)
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Improving student achievement
with high-level questioning
 Teacher questioning
Questions that place a higher cognitive
demand on the student promote critical
thinking and improve student achievement.
 Student questioning
Strategy (such as Question Answer
Relationships) in which students learn to
differentiate questions about text that leads
to improved comprehension.
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Teacher questioning
Questions on FCAT are categorized by
cognitive complexity:
Low
Moderate
High complexity
Based on Webb’s Depth of Knowledge
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Cognitive complexity
Questions with low cognitive complexity:
 One-step problem
 Require only a basic understanding of text
 Comprise only 10-20% of FCAT
 “Right there” answers (QAR)
 Recall questions (who, what, where, when,
why), retelling, summarizing
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Moderate Complexity
Questions with moderate cognitive complexity:
 Two-step process
 Require some inferencing
 Comprise 50-70% of FCAT
 Answers are “between the lines”
 Think and Search (QAR)
 Author and Me (QAR)
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High complexity
Questions with high cognitive complexity:
 Require several steps
 Require complex inferences across texts
 Comprise 20-30% of FCAT
 Answers are “beyond the lines”
 Author and Me (QAR)
 On My Own (QAR)
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Student-generated questioning
 QAR—Question-Answer Relationships
Strategy that that allows students to see the
relationships between the type of question asked,
the text, and the reader’s prior knowledge.
 Students learn how to distinguish questions with
answers that are found “in the book” (Text
Explicit questions) and questions with answers
that are found “in my head” (Text Implicit
questions).
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QAR
In-the-Book Questions
 Right There Questions
 The answer is in the text;
The words used in the
question and the words
used for the answer can
usually be found in the
same sentence.
 Think and Search Questions
 The answer is in the text, but
the words used in the
question and those used for
the answer are NOT in the
same sentence. The student
needs to think about different
parts of the text and how
ideas can be put together
before answering the
question.
In-My-Head Questions
 Author and You
On My Own Questions
Questions
 The answer is not in
the text. The student
must think about what
he/she knows, what
the author says, and
how they fit together.
 The answer is not in the
text. The question can be
answered without even
reading the text. The
answer is based solely on
one’s own experiences
and knowledge.
QAR and Bloom’s Taxonomy
 Right There
 Level 1 Knowledge
Information in the text
 Think and Search
 Level 2 Comprehension
and Level 3 Application
Information in several places in text
 Author and me
 Level 4 Analysis and
Level 5 Synthesis
Information both in and out of text
 On My Own
 Level 6 Evaluation
Information NOT in the text but
from background knowledge
Teaching Students to Use QAR
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Introduce QAR using a visual aid and a short selection to
demonstrate the relationships.
Model identifying and answering questions at each level
of QAR.
With teacher guidance, students practice identifying and
answering questions at each of the levels.
Students apply QAR to the reading of their regular texts.
For younger students or struggling readers, teachers
introduce and practice one level at a time before
introducing the next level.
REFLECTION
Ask yourself one simple question:
Who owns the questions in your classroom?
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