Quality Questioning or Higher Order Questioning

Quality Questioning, or Higher Order Questioning, consists of base questions that are used to engage students in their learning targets.  This is often known as Essential Questioning. These questions are open-ended, encourage discussion, and are often controversial or do not have one correct answer.  These questions should provoke thought and debate. “What caused the Great Depression?” is not an essential question because there is a straight-forward answer and it is not open-ended.  However, the question “How can we as individuals feel the weight and hardships of those that suffered through the Great Depression?” is thought provoking and still requires students to know what caused the Great Depression in order to answer it.  These higher order questions require deeper thinking from students and do a better job at keeping students engaged.

As teachers, we want our students to want to learn.  We want them to be interested in the content being taught and, more importantly, involved in their own learning.  These questions make it easier for this to happen. Essential Questions should be aligned to the state standards and relevant to the curriculum used.  While they are challenging and thought provoking, they should still be easy for students to understand. This is best accomplished through student-friendly vocabulary.  When creating these questions, it is important to ask the question to ourselves to determine if it is a higher order question. Is it truly open ended? Does it have multiple answers?  Does it spark discussion and debate? If the answer to each of these questions is “yes”, then the question is an essential question. Even if your curriculum does not include essential questions, they are really very easy to integrate into lessons.  These questions work best when asking them at the beginning of a lesson or unit, visiting it throughout, and returning to it at the end. Chances are, the students’ answers will change some each time the question is asked. Wait time is also critical when asking these questions.  The teacher should allow students time to ponder and determine what their opinion is before sharing with the class. The teacher should also utilize wait time after a student answers for another student to add to the answer. The following video exemplifies how to integrate essential questions in the classroom.