#97 The Questioning Process

Hi Everyone

Thanks for joining me again for this week’s instalment of Metacognition in Practice. We have on several previous occasions covered the need for students to develop a metacognitive way of thinking, and that’s because conscious evaluation lies at the heart of all effective ‘formal’ learning. The best way to achieve this is to ensure the gradual establishment of a metacognitive classroom that naturalises thinking differently.

Forget the quick fixes, and focus on every child becoming an independent learner who can take responsibility for their own progress. Notice…every child…not just the most able who are already demonstrating good reasoning skills. The only way that will happen is through an inquiring and collaborative environment where students ‘thoughts’ are out in the open and questioning is the norm.

If that doesn’t sound like your classroom at the moment, then don’t worry, making small incremental changes over time can lead to a palpable difference in the results that your students achieve. Your students don’t need to know anything about ‘metacognition’, in the same way we don’t talk to them about their ‘cognition’, despite the fact that they rely on it daily as part of the learning process.

Why complicate something that’s actually quite straightforward? What we want is for students to automatically question their own thinking in order to find out if there’s a better way to achieve the results they’re looking for. Problem is, you can’t get inside each student’s head to find out what thoughts are running through their mind at any given time, so you have to get everyone’s thinking out in the open.

We have discussed in previous issues how to do that, but alongside creating a genuine learning community in the classroom where everyone feels involved, we have to clearly model the questioning process. Rather than introduce the whole reflection cycle in one go, where students are expected to ask themselves a range of questions at different stages as they work through a task, this can be naturalised over time.

Why not start with just one question, making sure that everyone knowns what it is and why they’re asking it. Have that week’s question written up somewhere and repeat it often, both out loud to the whole class, and with individuals as you keep an eye on their progress, (or lack of it). A good one to start with is; what have I actually been asked to do? It’s surprising how many students don’t have the clarity you would expect from the teacher’s apparently clear instructions. The reasons for that are numerous, but for now let’s stick with the solution rather than the problem.

Students need to understand the reason behind us encouraging them to ask themselves that question. It’s so that they can learn to be more independent of the teacher (and eventually raise all the right questions for themselves to analyse their thinking). We don’t want to overwhelm learners with all of that in one go however, so one question at a time! You want to take the whole class with you in every lesson, so that no student gets left behind.

A second useful question that can follow fairly quickly on from the first, is; what should the finished product look like? Students who learn to ask themselves what they’ve been asked to do and what that actually looks like in practice, will either be able to start working with confidence, or can seek clarification. It’s important that the teacher encourages a more metacognitive way of working by not getting irritated when students do ask questions. Make sure that you also allow students to ask each other, so that a supportive collaborative atmosphere is created.

Once you’ve established a classroom where learners are checking in with each other (and themselves) about getting started, you could add in a third question along the lines of; what’s making it difficult for me? Each learner will struggle with different aspects of the work, so it’s good to get them acknowledging out loud that; they don’t get it, or writing/drawing is a struggle, or organising ideas feels hard, or even that they’re bored because they’ve done it all before.

It’s good for learners to identify their own barriers and helpful for you to know what they are as well, so that you can offer support for overcoming them. Often, once a barrier has been identified, acknowledged, and validated as a genuine blockage to moving forward for that individual, the solution appears and progress is made. We are aiming at all times for the student to recognise their own needs and see themselves as part of the solution.

Introducing questions one at a time in this way so that mastery can be achieved by every student before moving on, is obviously only the starting point for developing metacognition in learners, so join me again for the next stage!

Take care till then.

Warm regards

Liz