Assertive Questioning

Assertive Questioning 

The goals of in class questioning are to ensure high student participation, provide feedback to the teacher and students, and to provide thinking time for students. One effective questioning strategy is called Assertive Questioning. In assertive questioning students work in groups on a thought-provoking question or task to produce and justify their answer.

  1. The teacher provides the question or task.
  2. Students work in groups  while the teacher monitors the students.
  3. After a sufficient amount of time, the teacher calls on a student to provide the answer for their group. In this step, the teacher does NOT evaluate the answer, but instead asks probing questions (Can you tell me more about that? Why? Etc). The teacher solicits information from each group.
  4. After gathering feedback/answers from each group, the teacher then points out--or has students point out--differences between answers.
  5. The teacher now works with the class to get the entire class to reach a consensus by discussing, evaluating, and justifying.
  6. After the class has reached a consensus--or as close to it as possible--the teacher reveals the correct answer (if there is a correct answer).
  7. Finally, the teacher provides feedback to the students in regards to their communication, collaboration, thinking, etc.

What types of questions/problems does Assertive Questioning best work with/for? Open-ended questions, opinions, compare and contrast, step-by-step processes (graph, create a chart, solve), etc.

 

Tips

  • This strategy seems to work with both in-person and at-home learners or a combination of both.
  • While the students are working in step 2, this is a great opportunity to observe the process, but avoid leading students directly to an answer. Instead rely on questions like, Does everyone have an answer? I’m available for help? Is more time needed?
  • In step 2, the power of walking away is vital. So after providing a “hint” like You might want to think about this a little more. Walk away.
  • Explain to the students that you will be randomly calling on students, so it’s important that all group members are working together.
  • To monitor at home students, it might be helpful to pop into their breakout rooms or to have them create a shared document. Again, it might be helpful to have at-home students partnered with in-person students.

Through assertive questioning, a teacher can expect/measure participation by the number of students who are trying to answer the question. Through the process the teacher and the students get feedback on the quality of understanding through meaningful dialogue which is provided when students are given appropriate time to think productively about the question and develop a quality answer.

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