When Teachers Ask Questions

(c) Richard Bolstad

If you think back to your own experiences at school, you’ll notice that teachers pretty much always ask questions, and they range from questions that feel like put-downs and public humiliations, to questions which are affirming and encouraging of learning. Just “asking questions” does not necessarily promote learning, because questions can have these very different effects. What makes your questions come across as supporting students’ learning rather than insulting and humiliating them? One way to understand the difference is to understand “taxonomies” (classifications) of types of learning to check what “type” of learning you are asking questions about. Another is to understand the different structures of the questions themselves, and the structure of the learning experiences in which they are produced.

Taxonomies of Learning

A Taxonomy of Cognitive Learning: In 1956, Benjamin Bloom (De Landsheere, 1990, p 179-181) developed a taxonomy (classification) of Cognitive Educational Objectives. Bloom pointed out that when we say we want trainees to learn something, we may mean one of six (or even seven) things: Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis and Synthesis, or Evaluation. Some time after Bloom’s original work, in 2000, another level was added to the taxonomy: Creation (Krathwohl, 2002).

1. Sometimes we just want to check that a trainee has remembered a fact or theoretical statement (Bloom calls this Knowledge).e.g. “List seven types of behaviour which can be matched to achieve rapport?”
2. Sometimes we want to check that a trainee can see the relationship between facts or theories, describe a fact or theory in a new way, or realise what is implied by a fact or theory (Bloom calls this Comprehension or Understanding). e.g.  “When working with a client, what implications does the concept of rapport have for our choice of sensory representational systems?”
3. Sometimes we want to check that a trainee can apply a fact or theory in a particular situation (Bloom calls this Application). e.g.  “You notice that your new client disagrees with each of the first five sentences you say to him. He seems to enjoy disagreeing. How would you build rapport with him?”
4. Sometimes we want to check that a trainee can “chunk down” (get more detailed) on a fact or theory (Bloom calls this Analysis). e.g.  “What differences and what similarities are there in the use of direct and cross-over matching to achieve rapport?”
5. Sometimes we want to check that a trainee can “chunk up” (get more generalised) on a fact or theory (Bloom calls this Synthesis and some versions of his model, such as the following diagram, group it with Analysis). e.g.  “How does rapport help to build human relationships?”
6. Sometimes we want to check that a trainee can evaluate a fact or theory based either on its own internal consistency or based on external standards (Bloom calls this Evaluation). e.g.  “When is rapport desirable and when is it not? Explain in each case why you reach this conclusion.”
7. Sometimes we want to encourage the trainee to design new material or concepts. (Krathwohl calls this Creation). e.g. “How can we create a new model of the field studied by rapport that classifies rapport similarly to the way we classify the taxonomy of learning?”

Bloom’s model is only a model. However it does reveal certain interesting anomalies in much training. Often written assessments are Knowledge heavy. Certain subjects are often assessed only with one classification of question. Furthermore, while these questions are phrased perfectly legitimately for a written assessment, this doesn’t mean that asking people this way in front of the class will be effective.

The 4MAT: There are many other taxonomies of learning, by the way. One discussed by me in other places is Bernice McCarthy’s 4MAT, in which student learning is thought of in terms of answering the four questions Why?, What?, How?, and What if? ()Scott, 1994). The 4MAT is a categorisation of our students’ focus and questions, rather than of a teacher’s questions. In this case the aim of the teacher is sequentially to answer these questions in order to motivate students (“Why would you want to learn this in your actual life?”), to inform them (“What do you need to know to use this correctly?”), to coach them in a practical experience of using the information behaviourally (“How are you able to practice using this in simple form here in the room?”), and to discuss variations that they may encounter or create in real life (“What if you use this in your life – what other questions or learnings do you have about how to use this in real life?”).

As a teacher, I can code my own questions to match the 4MAT questions that my students have. 1) Firstly, I can ask questions designed to evoke students’ understanding of the “4MAT” answers for each subject (“Why would it be useful for you to know about this?”, “What information do you need to know to understand this?”, “How could we check your ability to actually do this in the training here?”, “What things might be different if you attempted to do this in the real world rather than just in the trainings?”). 2) Secondly, I also want to check that we have answered each student question adequately, and so I ask a question to check that: (Why: “Does this sound like something you’d be interested in learning?”, What: “What else do you need to know for this information make sense and for you to have a clear idea what each of these new terminologies mean?”,  How: “What else do you need to know to have fun doing this next exercise as described?”, What if: “What other questions do you have about using this practically?”). These last questions are questions that I actually ask in training groups almost every training.

A Taxonomy of Actions: V. Gerlach and A. Sullivan developed a taxonomy (categorisation) for use with the learning of active skills, discriminating between being able to “Construct” (producing a product meeting specifications given to them), and “Demonstrate” (performing a set of behaviours without the specifications, and meeting preset standards). After all, knowing that your trainees can run the NLP phobia process by following their notes is different to them being able to do it without notes, and different again from being able to modify the process in midstream to cope with unexpected or additional factors.

A Taxonomy of Attitudes: D. R. Krathwohl (De Landsheere, 1990, p 185) developed a taxonomy for assessing attitudes. At the lower level it lists Receiving an experience (eg being willing to experience rapport), followed by actively Responding (e.g. being willing to create rapport), then Valuing (e.g. considering rapport as useful), Organizing of the new value into one’s value system (installing the value of rapport in one’s hierarchy of values for relationships), and Characteristization, where the value is integrated into one’s sense of identity (e.g. experiencing oneself as a person who is good at rapport). In teaching cross-cultural communication, for example, it is a central focus of my work to assist students to move through the five stages of cross-cultural development identified by the Intercultural development Inventory (https://idiinventory.com/). This includes making explicit the intention to accept cultural difference, value it, and even expand one’s own self-concept to identify multiple cultural choices and appreciate these rather than reject them or merely evaluate them.

Questions about Facts: Some Risks

It is a standard definition of learning to say that “learning is a change in behavior” (Morgan et alia, 1986, p. 10). If my aim in learning is to ensure that students can successfully behave in ways that they could not before, then asking questions about facts only (e.g. “What is the amygdala?”) is eliciting the weakest form of learning, encouraging them to focus on memorizing instead of on their ability to act. It risks rewarding students for storing facts that they cannot actually use.

Prior Learning: If I ask questions about facts that I have not even explained yet (e.g. “Today, we are going to study the amygdala. Who knows what the amygdala is?”), then it rewards their previous memorizations, instead of even encouraging them to pay attention in the training room. It also disadvantages students who have not studied this area before and may encourage the idea that people new to the subject cannot understand it as well as those who have already learned this material somewhere else. There is a risk that new learners will give up and simply wait for the “experts” to answer, reinforcing their prior learning advantages. I understand that teachers frequently want to assess prior learning, and I recommend that you do this in a way that leaves your students feeling good about wherever they are with the material, including by clarifying that you just want to check where people are with familiarity with the subject. I often ask students to stand on a continuum from “I have no idea what this subject is about” to “I am just waiting for you to sit down so I can continue teaching the class myself actually”. That is to say, I recommend making the assessment of prior learning explicit rather than leaving students to guess whether they are being “evaluated”.

Jargon Meanings: There is another effect of asking about prior learning: the colloquial meaning of many terms, and the colloquial explanations of many phenomena are different to the jargon meanings and explanations that we want to teach in a field such as NLP. For example, Robert Dilts and Judith DeLozier say that “In NLP, strategy is used to refer to the steps of a mental process or “program” (in the sense of a computer program) that leads to a particular goal or outcome. Each step in the strategy is characterized by the use of one of the five senses or representational systems.” (Dilts and DeLozier, 2000, p. 1318). This is quite different to the general use of the term (the Cambridge dictionary, for example gives one common meaning as “a long-range plan for achieving something or reaching a goal, or the skill of making such plans.” – https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/strategy). If, before teaching students the NLP meaning, you ask students what a strategy is, obviously they will expect to be correct when they quote the dictionary meanings. If you correct them, then the only point of your question was to prove their previous understanding as an “error”, and students will quickly learn that, once more, only those who have previously studied the field can answer questions correctly. Even more concerning, it is possible that students get the sense that you are intentionally showing them as making errors, which is to say, humiliating them in front of the other students.

The Taxonomy of Questions

If you ask students to restate the “correct” NLP definition of a strategy, say a day after you gave it to them, you are at least testing their recall of information (“Knowledge”, in Blooms Taxonomy).  However, the other levels of the taxonomy would encourage students to engage their thinking skills and connect knowledge to choices they might use in real life.

Preframing Your Questions as Explorative: As a general principle, the aim of asking students a question in a group is to encourage their higher level learning, rather than to decide if they are right or “wrong”, smart or “stupid”. The whole idea that we are looking for what is right vs what is wrong comes from a much more traditional model of education. When we are teaching language patterns, for example, we tend to teach a small section of knowledge (a “language pattern”), give two examples of its application, and then invite students to generate more examples of their own.

For example, I might say “A complex equivalence language pattern can connect an event the client agrees has happened to a useful meaning they are hoping will happen. An example might be if I say ‘Deciding to come to this coaching session means you are already making progress towards this goal’ or ‘Recognising the challenge you are facing is actually part of changing it’. What are some other examples of that pattern that might be useful?” If they say they are still unclear how to do that we usually give another couple of examples of application and analysis. (n.b. We use synthesis and evaluation level “meta-questions” after the practice. Creation is a meta-level that we reach in our NLP Master Practitioner Training but rarely in the basic NLP Practitioner Training.)

Softening Frames: In a group we also soften questions with an initial “pre-framing” phrase that implies that we are exploring how much they can already do, rather than testing their success or failure, for example: “Can I check…”, “Let’s think about this a moment…”, “Let’s check how this works…”, “What’s your guess…”, “Any ideas?”. Without these subtle comments, students easily slip back into (are “anchored” into) the experience of being pass-fail assessed in their childhood school experiences.

Knowledge “Before we start, can I check that you can you recall the NLP definition of a strategy.”

Comprehension “My strategy for choosing a shirt in the shop involves looking at it and imagining if it will look good on me. My friend says he needs to try the shirt on to check that it feels right. Both strategies reach a similar goal in terms of choosing a shirt. Let’s think about this for a moment. Using the NLP definition of strategies what is the main difference between the two strategies. Any suggestions?”

Application “Let’s check how this works. Can you explain your own strategy for choosing a shirt, using the NLP model of strategies.”

Analysis “The NLP spelling strategy involves encouraging students to look up to their left as they attempt to recall the spelling of English words. What’s your guess. What do you think is happening at this step of the strategy, that makes spelling more successful?”

Synthesis “I am triggered to start my dishwashing strategy by seeing a large enough quantity of messy dishes. My mother used to artificially trigger this strategy by telling me to look closer at the dirty dishes on the kitchen bench. Using this example, we might hypothesize about the relationship of strategies and submodalities such as distance. Any ideas?”

Evaluation “So far we’ve talked about strategies as if they explain all behaviour. But can you see any risks in the NLP developers simplifying and codifying Milton Erickson’s skill with hypnotherapy as a set of linguistic and other strategies?”

Creation “It might be interesting and useful to develop a model that acknowledges the multiple levels that strategies operate on in the brain. At the time the NLP model of strategies was developed, very little was known about many brain areas outside the sensory systems. From what you know already about other areas of the brain separate from the sensory system areas, how could we design a new model to account for emotional responses, values and beliefs, for example?”

Eliciting Better Responses

Closed and Open Questions: With knowledge questions, there is often one word or piece of data that is the correct answer. Such questions (“How many sensory systems are there?”, “Do we only use the strategies model to elicit useful strategies, or can we use it to elicit unhelpful strategies as well?”) can be characterized as “closed questions”. As a generalization, closed questions focus on knowledge rather than more advanced levels of the taxonomy. Open questions begin with words such as “How …?” and “What …?”. Provided you do not use them to ask about the student’s own responses, “Why …?” can also elicit an open-ended response. If you ask a student “Why did you think that?” or “Why did you do that?” there is a risk that the question is interpreted as a criticism of their behavior, and so “How did you come to that choice.” May create a more comfortable question.

When students are reluctant to answer questions, open questions create safety because they imply that there are many acceptable answers possible. Closed questions are of course more time efficient. If I ask my students an open question (e.g. “What questions do you have about this topic?” or “What other things did you learn doing this exercise?”), I presuppose that they have relevant information, whereas if I ask a closed question (e.g. “Do you have any questions about this topic?” or “Did you learn anything else new, doing this exercise?”) I presuppose that they may or may not have relevant comments to contribute. I use the closed questions when I want to encourage only the essential unanswered or puzzling topics to be raised, and the open questions whenever I want to encourage the fullest contribution and thinking (usually).

Making it Safe to Respond to Questions: What if students seem reluctant to respond to questions? There are three main ways that I encourage students to respond to my questions:

1. Preparation in Pairs. Ask students to talk in a pair about the answer to a question, so that they can report back their shared answer, rather than feeling individually responsible for the answer. This is especially useful in a more collective culture where individual “showing off” of knowledge may be disapproved of. Students can even be asked to “help their friend” by raising issues that their friend reported to them.
2. Sharing the Responses Around the Group. Inviting a specific student to answer is the most risky way to invite discussion. It singles out these particular students, and may imply that I am concerned about their learning level compared to others. This is usually something I would do only because the students concerned are not answering questions as quickly as other students, and may not get a chance to answer simply due to their normal speed of response. Indeed, I will sometimes indicate that a particularly fast-responding student has already taken on more of the “burden of answering” than they need to by asking, “Thank you. What additional ideas did other people have?”. Since students I target specifically have been more reluctant to answer questions so far, it is extremely important to ask them a question that I am sure they can answer successfully. Asking a question that they give an “incorrect” answer to is actually not encouraging them to speak at all, but increasing their discomfort and making them even more reluctant to answer. Asking them what their personal experience of an exercise was like is an example of eliciting a response where they cannot be considered “wrong”.
3. Scaffolding answers. How I respond to answers to my questions has a profound influence on whether people will feel safe answering in future. I can help a student answer more fully or appropriately by responding to their first answer in a “Yes … and…” way rather than with a “No.” This helps gently construct a shared answer that is more correct than the student may be able to find on their own. In education, using the terminology of Lev Vygotsky’s students (Wood, Bruner, and Ross, 1976), this is called “Scaffolding” (building a supportive framework around learning, to help a student move beyond their current level of competence). For example, often a student answers vaguely and I can say, yes that is on track: what is an example of this?” or when a student answers incorrectly, I can say “That’s a possible idea. Do you recall the discussion about  ….? What answer might come out of that way of thinking?” or “The part of that answer that I think is most useful is …. and let’s keep looking for other possible answers to the other section.” Scaffolding can even be helped by simply reflective listening the person’s response and inviting them to rethink “So the way you are thinking about it is … and if we come back to the approach that we have been using here previously today, how could we also use this other perspective?”

Brainstorming

Frequently, rather than assuming that questions have one answer, it is useful to presuppose that they have many answers. This is particularly relevant at the level of “Application” in the taxonomy of learning. For example, I might ask “Now that we understand what “anchoring” is in NLP terminology, what are some ways that we could create useful anchors and avoid unhelpful anchors when designing a workplace like an office?”.

Brainstorming is also a precision teaching skill. It requires the trainer to list ideas in visual form (e.g. writing on a flipchart) so that we can see (and even “bounce off”) the ideas that have already been given, rather than losing track of them or even repeatedly stating the same idea. Ideas need to be listed in a form that the contributor recognizes, so if the teacher wishes to summarize or to specify the answer more fully, they need to ask the person to rephrase in a form acceptable to them, before writing the answer up. The question, while open, needs to be specific enough to elicit useful information (for example experiences from an exercise that the students have done) rather than having the students slip into offering clichéd answers that may not actually help us discover new understandings based on actual experiences.

If a student offers an overgeneralized answer in brainstorming, the trainer needs to ask for a specific example, so that other students do not simply give up, assuming that all possible answers are now covered. This happens when, as an example, I ask what behaviours in an office context would let us know that someone is stressed?” and someone says “body language” a category which covers everything I asked about. I just say, “Great. Give me a specific example of body language that would show that someone is stressed.” and I write up that example only.

Summary:

Questions can be usefully designed not merely to check knowledge but to encourage students to consider application and other higher order processing of information. It is useful to preframe your questions repeatedly as supporting collective creativity rather than as evaluating the students in a pass-fail way. Encouraging students to prepare before answering by talking in a pair, asking them to share the answering process in the group, and scaffolding answers to be more accurate and specific all assist in getting useful responses to questions from all group participants. Open questions and using a brainstorming format where ideas are listed visually help students creatively generate new ideas rather than simply expect there to be one correct answer. These skills give teachers the ability to use questions to enhance learning by students, and to avoid insulting, humiliating, negatively evaluating and silencing students. Used elegantly, teachers’ questions can build a climate of shared discovery.

References:

• Anderson, L.W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D.R. (Ed.), Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (2001) A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Complete edition). New York: Longman.
• De Landsheere, V. (1990) “Taxonomies of Educational Objectives” in Walberg, H.J. and Haertel, G.D. ed The International Encyclopedia of Educational Evaluation, Pergamon, Oxford.
• Dilts, R. B. and Epstein, T.A. (1995) Dynamic Learning, Meta Publications, Capitola, California.
• Dilts, R. B. (1996) Visionary Leadership Skills, Meta Publications, Capitola, California.
• Dilts, R.B. and DeLozier, (2000) “Encyclopaedia of Systemic Neuro-Linguistic Programming and NLP New Coding” NLP University Press, Scotts Valley CA.
• Krathwohl, D.R. (2002) “A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview”, in Theory Into Practice Journal, Autumn 2002, 41:4, 212-218, DOI: 10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2
• Morgan, C. T., King, R.A,Weisz, J. R. & Schopler, J. (1986). Introduction to Psychology. Delhi: Tata McGraw- Hill Publishing Company Limited.
• Scott, H. V. (1994). A Serious Look at the 4MAT Model..
• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Wood, D., Bruner, J., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Child Psychiatry, 17, 89−100.