1. Questioning

2. If you change one thing this week
– increase the amount of wait
time you allow when questioning
your class

3. Why is this important?
• Wait-time 1 –
amount of time
teacher allows to
elapse before a
student begins to
speak after asking
a question
• Wait-time 2 –
amount of time a
teacher waits after
a student has
stopped speaking
before saying
anything

4. Research has shown:

5. The average wait-time allowed by
teachers after posing a question is
one second or less.
Research shows:

6. Students whom teachers perceive as
slow or poor learners are given less
wait-time than those teachers view as
more capable.
Research shows:

7. Oral questions are more effective in
fostering learning than written
questions
Research shows:

8. Lower vs Higher cognitive questions
• Lower cognitive questions
– students asked to recall
material previously learnt.
(Sometimes referred to as
factual, closed, direct,
recall, knowledge
questions)
• Higher cognitive questions –
students asked to mentally
manipulate bits of
information previously
learned to create an answer
or to support an answer
with logically reasoned
evidence. (Sometimes called
open-
ended, interpretive, evaluati
ve, inquiry, inferential, and
synthesis questions.)

10. So… higher or lower cognitive?
• It depends on the students you have
• It depends on what you are teaching
• Both are needed – the skill is knowing which
to use and when
• Plan questions in advance using Bloom’s
Taxonomy

11. Wait time:
• Lower cognitive
questions – 3 second
wait time is most
positively related to
achievement (less
success from shorter or
longer periods)
• Higher cognitive
questions – longer the
wait time the more
students are engaged
and the better they
perform

12. Increasing wait time has the following
student outcomes:

13. Improvements in:
• Student achievement
• Student retention of information

14. Increases in:
• Number of higher cognitive responses
• Length of student responses
• Contributions by those students who don’t
usually contribute
• Number of questions asked by students
• Student to student interactions

15. Decreases in:
• Student interruptions
• Student failure to respond

16. Increasing wait time beyond 3 seconds
has the following teacher outcomes:
• Teachers listen more and engage in more
discussions
• Increases in teacher expectations of those
usually thought of as lower ability
• Expansion of the variety of questions asked by
teachers
• Increases in the number of higher cognitive
questions asked by teachers

17. Strategies to use:
• Use a 3 second wait time when using lower
cognitive questions
• Increase wait time beyond 3 seconds for
higher cognitive questions
• Combine with other strategies (e.g. no hands;
pose, pause, pounce and bounce)
• Know your students – and plan a suitable
range of lower and higher cognitive questions

18. • Will you have a ‘three second’ rule that you
share with the class?
• Or will you build the three second rule into
your own method of questioning?