4. Afterhours chat on Questioning CPD

Welcome to the podcast from the HLNSC teaching mentors. This podcast is aimed at colleagues working within the college, to help and follow up from a CPD session we've done recently and a chance to have a chat really about our experiences in the classroom.

We have Krista Price from our Wallford campus and Dean Bland from Holme Lacey. And we are gonna be talking about questioning. So Krista, you gave us a really great CPD last week. It was really popular and really well attended. All about questioning. What did you find while you were putting that together and what would you suggest to a member of staff just getting started with questioning techniques? When I was researching it and looking into it, there's lots of there's lots of tips out there actually. So it's really easy to, to find advice and tips. I have been doing some observations for some early career teachers that I've been mentoring, and so that's why I sort of wanted to take that topic on a little bit because it seems to be the, the thing that they struggle with quite a lot. And I think it's one of the most important things that you can start to develop as a teacher and you continually develop your questioning ability as you become a teacher and the longer you spend in it. So I think probably for, for the early career teachers, anybody who's kind of new to teaching, the tip I would say is, is to target your questions to your students and make sure you ask everybody in the room at least one question during your session so that everybody speaks and volunteers an answer. And if you target your questions based on what you know about them or what you think their level is, then that can be a really helpful way of kind of building confidence, engaging their, their knowledge as well. What advice would you give to someone? Cuz I've had a group that was sort of 26 and by the time I'd done everybody a question, that's half an hour of my lesson at least. Yeah, yeah. So what was your advice for fitting it in? So I think, I think the most successful questioning, and the thing I kind of really, when I was reflecting as part of my research for this is that actually. The most successful questioning is the, the spontaneous questions. So when you are, if they're doing a task within the lesson, then don't sit at the front and just watch them get on with the task. Actually walk around the room and. Talk to them and ask them questions while they're doing the task, because that's where, that's really where they're quite comfortable. So they're gonna be chatting with their peers, they're gonna be having a conversation. And so you can dip into those conversations and you know, either challenge perceptions, if there's something that you are listening to rather than you know, waiting till the end. So I think probably avoid teach something, ask some questions, teach something else, ask some questions. And then there's also, you can give, if you have got big groups, then you can make use of like your whole group questioning. So you can use your whiteboard technique where you ask everybody the same question and they write it on a whiteboard or even a, you know, a list of. A list of questions on a worksheet at the end if you sort of want to make sure that everybody has understood or what everybody has understood about your lesson. That sounds really good. Have you got parallels there, Dean, to things that you do over at Holme Lacey? Yeah, I mean, I, I would say so really. I mean, when we do the kind of like breakdown activities and, and we're working through ideas either within small groups or, I mean usually it's small groups of pairs. Yeah, that's very kind of, very much the kind of way we kind of go about doing it. Kinda dipping into conversations. I'd just say, Krista, they, they. Generally feel more relaxed than kind of us stood at the front and kind of directing questions. You know, however because it's a requirement of our course and the endpoint assessment that they have to get used to as answering questions within pressurized situations, we also have to kind of place them you know, in, in a kind of incremental and gradual way. We have to place them in, in situations where, We do create a bit of anxiety, so they learn how to deal with that anxiety. And in relation to that, it is helpful for us, for us to do that so we can identify those ones that need greater support dealing with that anxiety really. Yeah, we have the same, the same issues in that, you know, the ones that want to talk and are quite comfortable talking actually don't necessarily organize their thoughts particularly well. And the ones that are a little bit quieter are a bit more reluctant and don't necessarily give you the same and level of detail. So yeah, we have to, to do the same thing. And what I find, I dunno if you find the same Dean, but what I find through. Through the questioning techniques that you use, you could actually get them to write their answer down and then they're just reading it out rather than it being a spontaneous answer. Cuz often those that don't want to speak, they sort of freeze. Yes. When you put them on the spot. So we encourage them to actually practice with their peers or to write down their answers so that they've got something to read from and something to jog their mind. Right. Which is quite a helpful way of using that questioning. Or I might, you know, I might ask a question and then if the, if the student does sort of freeze up and goes blank, I will say, have a think about it. Write something down on your whiteboard, or write something down on your paper and I'll come back to you. So you give them that thinking time. Mm-hmm. That's really good. Yeah, that's good idea. Yeah. Do you, do you have a tip for, I've got a, a student, she's just leaving me now, but she, her hands up me, me, me the whole time and I have to, I have to feel quite brutal at times. Like, yeah, anyone but answer that question and just like, I have to use my hands, like, just calm down. Cause like you said, she not, hasn't necessarily processed her thoughts, it's just she's in it and she's totally, yeah. You know, on board. But yeah, really enthusiastic. Not that helpful. Yeah, I think you spins me off on a tangent. You have to train them to, to not put hands up. I think I prefer a no hands up type policy and, and only a hands up when you offer it to the entire room. But yeah, I mean, I have. I have students who, you know, even if you've nominated someone, they'll still answer for them. And I just kind of jokingly say, thank you very much to the person that you know, and then use the name of the, the student that that isn't you know, as a bit of a joke or, or you know, but you do have to be a little bit brutal with them sometimes and actually say, Please can you allow the other person to answer the question? You know, you are not being fair. I do also use, sometimes if I've got a particularly rowdy group, I use a speaking spoon. So we have a wooden spoon and you're only allowed to speak if you're holding the wooden spoon. So if you've got a group that talk over each other quite a lot it, it's okay if you've got one or two that are, that you know, are keen to answer if the rest of the group are able to, you know, control themselves. But if you've got a whole group of students that just talk, all talk over each other all the time and wanna answer all the questions, and that's quite a, you know, but you can use anything. You know, you can have a tennis ball and throw the tennis ball around the room. You can have, you know, one of those bean bag things. We've got a. We've got a horse, Teddy as well, that's called Wally. And sometimes, you know, you're only allowed to talk if you're holding Wally. So that's quite a good technique for training them to be quiet and only ask only answering questions when you know when they're asked or when it's a hands up moment. But yeah, it can be a problem. That's a really good tip. Thank you. Yeah, I like that. I mean when I've kind of confronted it before, I've kind of utilized the tutorial process really to help them reflect upon what they're doing and the impact is having upon them, but also, and also other learners. Because sometimes people just don't necessarily realize they just have to externalize what's going through their head at that moment. So I found that kind of effective. And again, that kind of fits in with this kind of like wider development within our course to support people or support the apprentices prepare for the end point assessment. But I do like I do like the Wally horse idea I'm not sure what we could do with the farriers. They shouldn't, certainly, shouldn't be chucking a horseshoe around. That would be way too dangerous for safety. It's really good ideas. And let's ask you now then something else that's challenged me. In a level settings, at least it is. And I did it for my developmental observation this year. I got Sarah to observe me and see if I was doing it. I, I, I find it difficult to, I get the answer from the nominated student and I go, thank you very much. And I move on and I don't delve and probe and get more. What's your, what's your top tip for getting more? Yeah, so I think this is probably one of the harder things to master, isn't it? Because I. What you are, what you're essentially trying to do is, is it's the higher order thinking, isn't it? And actually delving deeper into the student's brain and trying to get as much out of them as possible. So I think if you work along the lines of. Every, every encounter that you have with a student, you ask more than one question. So you should have several questions within each question exchange and I think I try and approach my questioning in those situations, particularly with my more able learners who I think, they should be thinking about the deeper understanding of what the, what's going on in the topic is. I almost try and find where the misconceptions are. So I, I'm thinking actually, how well does the student understand this? Because they can give me that answer. But actually, what about this and what about that? And have you thought about this? And so just pose some questions that encourage them to think about what you've, what the topic that you've, you've given them. And then maybe come back to them. So particularly if they're doing some group work, I'll go in and I, I almost play devil's advocate a little bit sometimes, and I'll say, I'll ask questions that will, that will almost provoke a negative response sometimes. Particularly with, you know, within our industry. And Dean will probably resonate with this a little bit. But, you know, within our industry there's some very odd ideas that people have that aren't necessarily correct or based on, you know, fact. To get them to think about it and sort of say to say at the end I'll just leave them with it and then come back to them. But I'll say at the end, this isn't my view, but actually this is a view that somebody has that I have seen on Facebook, or I have seen in social media, or, you know, I've actually heard somebody saying to me or somebody's asked me this question. And deliberately use those types of provocative questions that will kind of get the students to think about an alternative. And you also find as well that quite often they're quite narrow minded in their thought processes. Being teenagers, you know, they're very, they can be quite opinionated and actually, you know, this is what I think, this is what I've understood about this. And so those. Yeah, but have you considered this? Or what about in this situation? You know, what about if, you know, if this was the case, would that always be the same? So it's those types of questions that I use a lot during my kind of classroom walk around while they're doing their group work that actually then start to, to delve a little deeper into their understanding. Yeah, that's really helpful. That really, that's really applicable to A levels, because if you, like, we do it with countries in geography. You know, such a place is a poor country. Well, hang on a minute. Is it, you know, does it not have a capital city with high rise and office blocks? Is that poor? You know, so we have to really delve. Yeah, so I would say the same. As, as Krista, we do kind of ask those kind of questions and let them kind of think about it while we work through the topics and come back to it and, and explore that more deeply in that. As, as you say, Krista does kind of challenge the learners, the apprentices, to kind of think about it in, in a more kind of profound way and supports and develop a greater kind of contextual understanding. And that kind of really you know, for some, for some apprentices that's really helpful because they can only really remember it and understand it if they have that kinda wider contextual view of it. So I, I would definitely say we kinda share that approach and yeah, when, when you were kind of talking about lifting kind of what kinda statements or, or misconceptions of, of Facebook and using that as a point of, of discussion. Yeah, we, we need to do quite a lot of that really because within our endpoint assessment, They have a, a professional discussion, and in that professional discussion, they're gonna be asked to navigate through some quite ethically kind of complex situations. So challenging their preconceptions, challenging their beliefs is, is part of what we, we need to do. So we, we definitely do that bit as well. Yeah, I think there's an element of in both our industries, I suppose. Mm-hmm. And there's an element of. Of the human isn't there and how they deal with people and people and other people's, yeah. Viewpoints and you know, how do you, you can't just go into a situation, especially as, you know, the, with the farriers, they can't just go into a situation and, and tell their clients that they're stupid and expect to still have clients. So, you know, and we have the same sort of, you know, Situation in terms of our, our industry as well, because a lot of them will go into work where they have to deal with owners and people and and you know, often, They, they, they will themselves then have to challenge people's misconceptions and ideas in a, you know, professional way. And that's part of what we are teaching them to do. And by us, we are modeling what we are expecting them to do by doing that within the classroom, which then they can sort of see how we've nav navigated that situation with them. Yeah. And how we've kind of discussed how How they have maybe perceived something in a slightly incorrect way or maybe they've had a slightly biased view about something. And actually we can use that discussion and that questioning technique to, to really to really navigate our way through that and change their perceptions. Abso absolutely. Yeah. I mean Yeah, just, just kinda a couple of recent groups, you know, one kind of group within the, kind of that kind of process, you know, came back and, and started saying to me, well, you know, this isn't farriery Dean. Why are we talking about this? This isn't farriery. So that was kind of one response. You know, dealing with that, the current group that're in totally different response. You know, we, you could just see like little light bulbs going on all across the classroom. They're thinking, yeah. Oh wow. Just, you know These are the things that we should be doing, and I can fully understand why it has a, has a role in, in, in, you know, the profession I'm gonna take up when I qualify. So so it is interesting, isn't it? You're kind of putting yourself out there a little bit though as well, aren't you? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because you're not, you're not in a kinda situation where you're, you're just kind of like, Delivering information. You are, you are getting into a discussion and kind of being able to do that and handle that and, and make sure it's safe for everyone you know, is, is a challenge. So it's, it's great that we are discussing this cuz it's, yeah, it is one of the more kind of challenging elements of what we do. It's valuable, isn't it? Yeah. So moving on then I've got a kind of final question for you, Krista and Dean. When you are thinking about questioning and you are planning your lesson, what's your process? Do you have questions written down? Are you so experienced that they just come because you are there in the moment and you know what you need to challenge? How, how do you organize questioning day to day? Mm-hmm. I do a bit of both. I'm not, dunno what you do, Dean, but I, I, yeah, I do. It depends on the topic. And the structure of the lesson. I think questions come naturally to me and I like to respond to what's happening in my room. And I find that I will have sort of set questions, but I will often abandon them. Or I, or I will, you know, kind of react to what the students are giving me. At the time in my practical lessons, I will often just react to what's happening because the horses are all different. And things happen during those sessions that naturally lead onto a discussion and then, It's what I really like is when actually you get the students to a point where they're then asking you questions about what they're seeing. Mm. Which is really, you know, a really positive and valuable experience where they're going, oh, I've just noticed this. Why? You know, and then they're asking us why. And then obviously we can then turn, turn that around and, and try and kind of get them to think about it a little bit more. Mm-hmm. But I think as an early career teacher, I definitely. Made a list of questions or I would have, you know, set questions for each of my sessions. And also if I'm teaching something that I'm not as comfortable with, if one of my topics that I'm teaching is, you know, not necessarily my strength area, then I potentially will write down some questions that would just kind of help me a little bit more in terms of delving a little deeper. Yeah. I found writing them down, just, just a few, maybe five or six, just to keep the kind of thread of where we want to be going with this topic really helped me move away from, guess what I'm thinking? Kinda questions. Yeah. Yes. Because I found I was doing that quite a lot and students were like, oh, I don dunno what she wants. But I, yeah, yeah. I need, I needed to, to phrase them better and yeah. Link them to what we're doing better. So yeah, having them written down, I found really valuable. I think if you do write them down as well, it's probably quite useful when you are starting to think about actually bringing in other topics and bringing things together. And how can you relate this to your maths, your English? Yeah. How can you relate this to their career opportunities? How can you relate it to the wider context? So good idea when you're looking at those sorts of things or when you're starting to develop that within your teaching. I think. That's a really good, a really positive thing to have written down. And to be honest, I think it's a personal thing. I think some people would like to have their questions written down because they may not remember them. But, you know, I tend not to as much. I do have some written down. I tend to have my whole classroom questions written down, and I might have them on my PowerPoint, which, you know, or if I've got a task then I will write that on my PowerPoint where they can then, you know, have it up on the board for the whole session where they've got it to refer to. But I would say probably 90% of my questions are spontaneous. Mm. Yeah, I think, I think that's the case. Hundred percent of yours, Dean. I think that's the case for me for a lot of my sessions. Yeah, it's they're born out of I would say you know, when you teach kind of teaching something and you teach it a lot you you kinda deep understanding of it. And what I've kind of found is as, as I've kind of gone down that journey there, there has been kind of certain kind of revelations because I've started kinda making connections with other, you know, subjects or related subjects. So there's kind of like little revelations and those are the things that really fire me up. And and I suppose they form part of the questions that I. Put to the apprentices because you know, I think they, you know, they're very interesting. So, so that's part of the way in which it happens. The other way in which it happens really, I suppose, in a, you know, kind of organic way, is that it's, there's a lot of kinda discussion within our sessions. So we, it's, it's, the questions arise out of the discussions that we're having But that said I do do some preparation for some sessions, particularly where, for those sessions where I've got that I'm coming to it kind of new as well. So you know, some of the elements on the fringe of, of, I suppose, core farriery because they're relatively new to me as well. I, I do find that I have to sit down and think about what is it we're gonna ask, what is, what are the kind of main learning outcomes and how do we get to those main learning outcomes? So there is a little bit of that. I suppose fundamentally if you are reflecting and you are thinking about how you're gonna go about it at some point. Then then you, you know, that preparation can be fed into the, into the session. And I do a lot of my reflective practice just driving between jobs. Thank you very much, Krista, for sharing your expertise. and Dean Yeah. Thank you very much for sharing your experiences. That's been really helpful.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found that useful.

Over the coming weeks, we'll be podcasting and interviewing colleagues around the college, about a range of teaching techniques and theories and concepts in teaching and learning, and we look forward to sharing our findings with you. Please hit subscribe if you've liked what you're listening to and leave us a review. We'd be thrilled to hear from you.