100 Ideas for the Primary Classroom: Questioning
This is an excellent book and probably one of my favourites in the 100 Ideas series.
Ross Morrison McGill - Teacher Toolkit recommended 100 Ideas: Questioning in his blog: 10 Books for your Teacher Bookshelf.
This book can be used by secondary as well as primary teachers, or in fact anyone who wants to get better at question asking.
Questioning is key to effective teaching and learning, yet practical questioning strategies that are immediately useable in the classroom can be hard to come by. 100 Ideas for Primary Teachers: Questioning presents practical strategies, games and activities not only to help teachers improve their own questioning in the classroom, but also to allow pupils to develop an understanding of how they too can ask effective questions to develop their learning.
In this book Peter encourages teachers to develop an open questioning mindset, showing how, by being receptive to problems, alternative positions and unexpected responses, they can activate children's thinking and imagination. With ideas for using different question types, question delivery, speaker selection, as well as developing children's own enquiry skills, the book is ideal for teachers looking to build a repertoire of effective questioning strategies and a secure understanding of this core element of classroom practice.
“The invention – for that is what it is – of the concept of open questioning mindset (OQM) is a remarkable contribution, not just to the pedagogy of philosophical inquiry with children but to good pedagogy in any context. In an unassuming, but extremely elegant, way, Peter Worley has matched the much more famous pedagogical contribution, 'growth mindset', of Carol Dweck. Indeed, it could be argued that a teacher who models and encourages OQM contributes more directly to a child's intellectual growth than one who models and encourages growth mindset. At any rate, a child might be more likely to become a fully self-directed learner through developing an OQM of her own, than merely developing a growth mindset. For it could be through – and only through – the practice of OQM that one might develop the capacity, in the metaphor of Plutarch, to 'light the fire of learning' in and for oneself.”
Roger Sutcliffe, Founding Member of SAPERE
