In this podcast episode, Michael Charles explores the critical role of questioning in education, a practice often overshadowed by trends in assessment and feedback. He highlights that questioning is deceptively complex, as it requires making an abstract pedagogy concrete, which is why his latest book took the longest to write. Charles advocates for a mixed approach to questioning, combining hands-up and cold-calling techniques based on classroom culture and purpose. For instance, mini whiteboards work well for quick retrieval tasks, while hands-up fosters discussion. He emphasizes the importance of building a supportive classroom culture to engage reluctant students, using strategies like "question lag" (giving extra thinking time), narrating the value of errors, and employing think-pair-share to boost confidence. Charles also addresses multiple-choice questions, noting their diagnostic power when carefully designed, though teachers often struggle with creating effective distractors. Throughout, he underscores that questioning is not a one-size-fits-all tool; it depends on context, student relationships, and the teacher's ability to adapt. Drawing from his classroom experience with Year 11 students, Charles provides practical advice for improving participation and deepening learning. The conversation concludes that effective questioning is a skill that requires ongoing reflection, collaboration with colleagues, and a focus on fostering a safe environment where all students feel valued and willing to contribute.
[Music] Hello, I'm here with Michael Charles. Welcome back to the evidence-based education podcast, Michael. How are you? I'm good, thank you. It's really good to be back. I've just seen that longer ago since I was on the podcast talking about feedback. Yes, and if listeners do want to listen to that, we'll share a link. The episode where you spoke with Jamie from evidence-based education about feedback, I really enjoyed that. But today we've got a different theme. We're focusing on questioning, just like feedback is incredibly important and something that you've done a lot of work with. But just to start off, can you tell our listeners a little bit about your current role and what you do? And I know obviously you've written a lot of books so feel free to just briefly summarize everything that you're doing in education at the moment. Yeah, so exciting, really exciting, a couple of years, but working in school in the north-west and system principle there. Good luck enough to keep stage 4 in particular and working with Year 11 and then got the exciting role of aspects of teaching, learning and aspects of revision and assessment. So quite exciting really. And then working with schools, most recently work with a school in Singapore, that was exciting and had the opportunity to work with them and support them with their feedback practices. And then most recently wrote a book with David Goodwin on 3CTs which has come out last month. And yeah, so it's been an interesting couple of years and obviously the tour of research yet, different ways of using involvement in those. Well that's why I met you and David Goodwin, we were in an airport waiting for our flight that had a few dramas along the way. But before we get to question and I did want to ask about your book with David because it's brilliant. It's really impressive. I don't think there's a book out there like it. So just for our listeners, well actually before I actually describe the book, can you tell me just because I'm interested, how did the collaboration with you and David come about? Yeah, I mean, David and I have probably had conversations mainly from meeting at research yet really and discussing and then we've built that sort of friendship. And I think we just both decided there was something there where ECTs are looking for in terms of that starting point, I've been able to have something that was to hand and they could reference in the assignments that they might be doing or when they're working with their mentor on a particular strategy. And there's lots we know that there's lots of books out there for education now. It's quite an expansive field of books and it's great to have lots of expertise of practicing teachers and teachers that have moved on and working with schools. It's great to have such a broad market. And we just thought it'd be great to have a book that brought all those different strategies together and the research and digestible chunks for ECTs. Yeah, well this book is year one. There's a plans for year two. I think although we call it year one and this was I only realised that when we discussed it, David came up with the main headings thought, let's call it year one and I came up with a sub ties on and then he revealed to me actually his link to his marble obsession. So I think it could and to be honest it can be used for a field and beyond the year one and with the ECT framework ECT ones and ECT twos and I suppose it could be a good refresher for anyone who's who's teaching but I think there's in the pipeline of we're thinking about a workbook and that could be something that would go alongside it really to help ECTs to get their ideas down when they're grappling with a strategy maybe on classroom systems or when they're thinking about assessment or professional development. So that's something we're considering for the future. Well something that you have written about before but now you're really honing in on is questioning I recently because I'm new to EBE and I've been working my way through the courses and there's a fantastic online course about questioning it's really good and it got me thinking because obviously your book is coming out about questioning considering how important question in his for teachers. Every teacher regardless of key sage and subject will ask questions every lesson every day yet this isn't something that is talked about or that there is as much CPD out there or books and that's why I really do welcome your book but why do you think that is? Why do you think there's been a lack of attention and focus on questioning considering how important questioning actually is? Yeah I think in the past I was thinking of trends that have happened in education I've been to a lot of focus on assessment and how we assess students and in particular with the GCSE reforms in 2018 and the discussions around SATs at key stage 2 there's been a lot of discussion around assessment and what that looks like and getting that right and then from that how do we give feedback and think that just naturally fell into the next sort of way of focusing schools and getting feedback right in particular because of the associated workload that came with it and I suppose that's kind of led to questioning sort of not necessarily being sort of forgotten about but just not really focused on it and this is probably in the most challenging book that I've written so far and taking me the longest I would say and I think that's because it's quite difficult to I think it's quite abstract in terms of a pedagogy and try to make concrete it's quite challenging so I think maybe that could be a reason for it or maybe we just think as practitioners that asking questions is easy it's easy to ask a question why do we need to focus on it? I agree with you because earlier my career I had a lesson observation by a line manager gave me really good feedback about questioning I was only using hands-up approaches and the same three students were answering each time and I was alternated between the three of them and I never really thought that much about it and it was very obvious after the observer said that to me but it was just something that I assumed that I just do naturally and that I did well and then actually building on after that lesson observation I then went to watch another teacher with a focus on watching them with their questioning but I think you're absolutely right the fact that we do it day in day out it feels so natural to us and as you said trends and other priorities and so on and that's really interesting that you say that about this book being quite a tricky one because there are challenges to it and complexities but moving on at the moment, co-calling and many whiteboards seem to be really popular on Twitter and discussions basically questioning approaches that are no hands-up that involve all learners in the classroom and for any of our listeners not familiar, co-calling, Titoika Champion technique is asking students a question without their hands up but do you think despite that emphasis that there is still a place with in the classroom for a hands-up approach to questioning? I think so and I think reading some of the research around a particular participation in the classroom and the fact as the effect where the students want to participate I think sometimes we need to acknowledge that as practitioners and I think I watched a teacher last week actually observed a teacher last week and her focus was on questioning and that was something that she's working with with me on and I've watched her into change a series of strategies and a questioning sort of like a session of the lesson where she used a mixture of coal core hands up and it was fascinating to watch because the way that she did it was so clever that she flipped the two interchangeably throughout that questioning discussion period and sequenced her questions at the same time but I think she was only able to do that because the culture is in the classroom and I think because she built that culture over the last sort of six weeks as she's had this particular group she's been able to do that and I think that's important to acknowledge because I think sometimes we might go straight into coal core in because I'd say it's something that's out there and it's quite well known now as a strategy but actually it could do the opposite of of increasing anxiety with pupils and then not wanting to contribute and I think especially for new teachers if you went straight into using coal core and right from the start from the first week you might find actually
has a negative impact on learning potentially. That's interesting. I, with co-calling, I really struggled with it. Although I persevered with it. And as a secondary teacher like yourself, those first few weeks when you've got so many names to learn, I would have students write their name on a sticker. That would help me use their name when co-calling to help me learn their name to make it a bit more personal. But that, I think, is a strategy that teachers struggle with. Where hands up seems to be the go-to strategy. But like you've said, a good idea is basically this. There's a place for them both. Absolutely. And I've got eight teaching groups at the minute. So, who try and remember all the. I think I've got. I've always teacher about 250 students, three English students at the minute. And try and remember all those names over the last six weeks. So, I've definitely mixed my question and at the start, didn't only if I knew the students quite well. But I find it quite interesting as well, because some students are only starting to participate now. And still a little bit shy, and I've acknowledged that and taken my time with them. But always find hands up quite interesting, because sometimes I'll go for hands up. And actually give them a bit of time. And I might say, I want to see a few more hands before I go to someone. And it's quite interesting that then some students do start to put their hands up as well. And you start to get quite a lot of students put their hands up. And then even if some don't, I might go to the ones that haven't got their hands up, because actually I'm wondering there. And I can see straight away. If I've got 20 hands up out of 24, then I know those 20 feel they know an answer. Then I know straight away for the don't. But if I call call sometimes I can't tell that. It's difficult, isn't it? So, I think like you say, I think a mix of different strategies is important when it comes to question. Would you also say it depends on the purpose? So for example, if you're doing a retrieval task, you might do the mini whiteboards, because it involves everyone. But if it was more discussion-based, asking for opinions and ideas, that would be more appropriate for hands up. So that the purpose is important. Yeah, I think so, definitely. And I think that's important as well, what you say, because you can use mini whiteboards for a quick retrieval. And you can quickly see if there's a misconception, maybe by a hinge question that you're using for the retrieval practice, or an open question that you might have. And you can see that. But when you want a discussion and build a discussion, I've found using a different approach, a bit more powerful, and see, consider the questions as well, which is what I saw that, that a colleague do really, really well. So yeah, absolutely. And I think I was reading your yours and Dylan's block about, think, share. And I think, combining that as well, really, really powerful, because sometimes it could be that, they just need that little bit of an opportunity to bring something back to the forefront of their, of their working memory. So this week, it was, I was teaching about Westernization, and it's quite a difficult term. And I just said, before I did anything, before you introduced it, I said, right, just with a person next to you, 30 seconds, just have a chat, what you know about Westernization, what do you think about the term? And that had let them have that discussion before I asked any questions, because I think that also is important. Yeah, and I'm sure you'll agree with me, I miss. But actually, this is something that you've just reminded me of. And something I saw on Twitter that was about a retrieval practice, with someone was trying to enforce that the answers must always be written. And I disagreed with that because of early years, we'll have verbal retrieval, NFL practical subjects. So whilst obviously there is value and importance of the written answers, the verbal responses are really important, aren't they? You do agree? Yeah, definitely I do a such a mix, such a mix, and that thing, pair of shares, so powerful with a verbal retrieval there. And it's, it could, yeah, it can be anything. And I think that, like you say, that's really important to acknowledge that depends on the context, but yeah, written, verbal, yeah, really, really important. And equally, we usually do retrieval through digital software as well, which you can, is another way in which to retrieve it. And that could be things like Senegal learn really powerful to maybe match things up. That's an act of retrieval, isn't it? Or maybe even using quizzes where they're not writing anything down, but they're choosing an option again. And that's not an act of some form of retrieval as well. Yeah, well, that's great. And you've already touched upon this from my next question because you said, and I love this about you Michael, that you're in the classroom, you're breathing this day and day out. And I know of the challenges that come with being in the classroom and writing books. It's not easy. But you already said that you're taking your time with some students, you're building up relationships. So what do we do if we've got those students? Because we'll have some who are very keen to answer. They always want to answer, and they're very confident. And that's brilliant. But then we do have those reluctant students who are just really struggling to engage or volunteer answers. Do you have any advice for teachers about those students? Yeah, so actually chat to two's all about fostering that culture. And so there's a whole chat to there about fostering the culture. And I talk about this idea of a question lag. So when you ask a question, there's this invisible lag between your question and the child answering the question. And often that's-- I talk about due to many reasons it could be due to their anxious appear pressure. The question might invoke an emotional trigger for them. They may just not be confident. And in particular, I've got lots of girls at the minutes. For whatever reason, who are not very confident at answering questions at the moment. And I think that's just the culture of potentially the fact that they feel more self-conscious, particularly that this is year 11 girls at the minute. And I think that's just their confidence. So I think for those, it's about finding-- and there's no-- I don't think there's a silver bullet to this. But it's about finding an opportunity where you can give them that bit of success in answering the question. And so I've worked on different strategies. I've got a feeling like they'll know the answer for one. So I'll do that. Also, I'll give them more thinking time so often. The idea of no optat thing's really important. But the same time doing it in a warm, sort of encouraging way. So what I'll often do is I might say, I'll come back to you in a minute. I'll give you a little bit longer to think about it. But I really want to hear your response, because I know you know the answer. I know you've got something that's really important to contribute. And one of the things I also have written about in here is that idea that what I do all the time every week is I always narrate that anyone who contributes. It doesn't matter if you get it right or wrong. And I think that's really important for practitioners to do as well to really narrate that in their classroom to say, get in the answer wrong. It's all part of learning. It's absolutely fine. No one's going to laugh at you and hear no one's going to judge you. That's really important. So I talk about that as well. And I think it takes time. And I think that's important to acknowledge as well, because classrooms are so dynamic, aren't they? And every year group is different. Every mix of classrooms provide those individual challenges. But I think using a few of those strategies can be really helpful to improve participation. And I'm seeing that. And I see in all the lessons as well. And I've talked to practitioners who say, on struggling to get extra contribute, and I've asked them why you try a few of these strategies first and see how it goes. I think that in itself, saying to a colleague, I wish I had done that. I wish I had said to my colleagues, I'm struggling with this class, or I'm struggling with this student, and maybe watch their lesson, invite them into my lesson. There were all these things that we can do in-house that after I haven't done. And when I did go observe another teacher with a focus on question, I took a huge amount away from that, as well as being able to provide feedback. Something that I've also suggested to some teachers is that there's actually some great videos on YouTube, Doug Lamar posts of the call calling. And that's a great thing to, because it can be quite daunting to ask the one to come into your class. But if we've got the right attitude and culture, like you've been talking about, they could be really helpful, can they? I think so. And I talked about those days in my career, where lots of students would be saying, "I don't know," or "at non-expandentary response" that the research talks about, where it's easy for them to say, "I don't know," because often they do know that it's laziness. And I remember David Adel talking about the whole issue around.
students rather being perceived as being lazy than stupid because they think that sort of like knowledge and intelligence is fixed, whereas we know it isn't. And and I talk about how I've experienced where I actually sound students when I've pushed them in the past have got quite defensive and sometimes quite aggressive. I can no stop asking me, I can't, I don't know the answer, and it's helped me to realise actually how to switch that and I think experiencing that as well as maybe realise that the culture in the classroom is probably like the backbone to get in that question in right and use the question in the classroom right. Yeah, absolutely right, the relationships as well, knowledge of your students. I think this is brilliant. How you wrote case studies for my book, have you had case studies for your books? And then one of those things is about multiple choice questions. Because obviously I've written a lot about retrieval practice, I'm a big advocate for multiple choice questions, they could be used for check if for understanding, but I still find that that some teachers are either reluctant to use them or they think they're too easy. I've also seen lots of very badly designed multiple choice questions online. So in terms of multiple choice questions, where do you stand and what advice would you offer to teachers? Yeah, I think multiple choice questions can be really powerful than one of the things that we've done in terms of there's a chapter in the book about diagnostic question and using question into diagnose where people are at. So when we assess at the minute, we assess two strands. One strand is knowledge, one strand is application of knowledge and assessment of knowledge is at the minute one of the strands in which we utilize multiple choice questions and designing those multiple choice questions like it says really challenging and sometimes teachers don't want to do so they just don't do, but actually it really tells you what students do and don't know what the misconceptions are and we use quizzes for that actually and I think quizzes is fabulous as a tool to generate a range of question types and multiple choice questions to ask students different components of their curriculum and really tells you what that class knows and doesn't know what you then need to re-teach. So yeah, we've used multiple choice questions one route through diagnostic question for that particular purpose just to assess knowledge. Do they do they know the nuts and bolts of the subject what where's the gaps and then we read address those gaps and re-teach them in the classroom and then also we use them as sort of hinge points questions at different parts of less than potentially with many whiteboards or we might use them as a as a retrieval or we might use them with our knowledge organizers and this is something that actually I'm just writing a blog about knowledge organizers because I saw something the other week on Twitter saying oh where's knowledge organizers gone they're turning to a bit of it was a bit of a fad and they've disappeared and actually we we use them all the time and it reminds me of Mary's statement of live not laminated and I'm not a ge organisers that live they live and breathe every every day at home in the classroom and we've used multiple choice questions from the knowledge organizers as well. So I think that really really powerful and for me reflecting on the journey that we've taken over the last two years with with this approach to assessment and use the questions for it it's really helped the students to to really understand where their gaps are as well because quizzes create some a little play report and that's a really powerful self-regulation tool which that we've also really taken taken advantage of and I think complete sidestep to it but I think it's important schools trial things and then they just ditch them if they don't work straight to wait. Now we've gone on a journey with quizzes for the last two years and yeah that is some things are not quite where we want them to be there's little things with the multiple choice questions where doesn't necessarily work like we'd want but we're reviewing that and tweaking it and finding out how we can make it as powerful as possible and I think that's important to acknowledge as well. Yeah I'm a big fan quizzes.com and teleport feature as well isn't it I think this is and this is something David Goodwin has worked on when he with the geography community with the trivial relapse and collaboration with question design. Do you think that's something that teachers should do more of in departments or even as subject communities or your communities working together to share and design effective questions? Yeah we do it within our departments and we think about the best way to ask the question the best distractors. We did think about something that obviously you talked about with Doug and your your log about the the I don't know feature yet or I don't know yet feature and we did consider putting that in and it may be something this year that we might do in terms of the next step where we're up to just so we could see because we've got a lot of students now that are used to that structure they're quite confident they know that the quizzes is low stakes because we've built that culture with them it's about do you know it don't you know it and then if you don't know well this is what we're going to do to help support you so I think the next step might be now to actually introduce that option because we didn't want to do it straights away last year because we thought they might just choose that as a lazy option as in like a get out cause rather than try and so report you know what let's just delay it a little bit but now we're thinking maybe we could do that now yeah well Doug lem off I asked him what did he think about I don't know yet because when Dylan William was editing my book he mentioned about how students could use it as the get out of jail card opt-in but I don't know all the time and so to get around that I would say you've allowed to pick I don't know yet X amount of times so if you've got 20 questions you could select it to me or five times and then Doug Lemov said well they'll know something even if they don't know that question they'll know something linked to it and all of a sudden that final option I know that and then you fill it in becomes actually the hardest option because you're actually physically writing something in contrast to selecting the right answer and this is just something I've encountered recently and I thought actually be good to talk to you about I was I work with lots of different schools with checkered standing and retrieval practice and I have noticed that some departments across let's just say history they'll be asking the same questions and then others are very honest and they say well we sort of do our own thing we have the scheme of work and the lesson objective but we write our own quizzes and one specific department told me that this teacher liked to do many whiteboard this one liked to use technology my advice was can't you ask the same questions but you have them on your PowerPoint slide for the mini whiteboard you have them online in contrast to just go in rogue so to speak because I think that's where the I think consistency is really important do you agree then yeah definitely so we the quizzes always designed together that all students when they're doing the diagnostic assessment through those multiple choice questions or whatever it might be through the option on quizzes it's all let's say for example we do it for year nine or year nine will answer exactly the same questions but it really allows us to do it's it's too fold really because we then download all the data and we say right okay all of the year nine struggled with x question so then we start on picking it we say right is it the way we taught it so do we need to review the curriculum is it just it's a misconception so they're struggling with it so we just need to retech it or is it something to do with the way we wrote the question so we do all that review what's been quite interesting and I don't think we would have realized this unless we've done this was that for year so we teach about eccentricity and geography so we teach about the the way in which the earth orbits and that orbit can change from a little bit to call the circular every hundred thousand years this is what Melanchovich said he was he was a scientist it's been a recurring issue for this particular cohort when we we taught it in year ten last year but the year 11 again this year is it's still an issue because what we what we try and do with these diagnostic assessments is we bring back questions that have been poorly done originally like a gap and it's still a recurring issue now I don't think we would have known that if we did just all done our own thing so yeah I think it's really important to have that consistency where do we do have flexibility I would say between practitioners is what we will do is in terms of where we might bring the
retrieval practice back is where we might have class gaps. My class has a gap on a particular air component of a curriculum. I will use retrieval practice maybe at the start of the lesson or at some point I maybe do some form of retrieval practice homework where I'll set a particular section on Senica for that class because it's their gap. Whereas like a colleague, you might have a different gap in their class. So yeah, I think consistency is important in terms of asking questions if you're going to use them as an assessment tool, but then having that flexibility to be able to be a responsive practitioner if you've got those individual gaps. What's really interesting about what you've just said, let's say there was a gap or a large percent of the class getting this question wrong in my class, but in your class they did really well with that. It might be worth me asking you, well how did you explain it? Can I see you in action when you deliver that explanation? All those sorts of things that you said it could be really, really powerful and insightful. So I really like that about the flexibility where it's appropriate and then the consistency is key, brilliant. Well Dylan Williams written a lot about questioning with formative assessment and Dylan says in terms of questioning, this is specifically when he saw my high order thinking questions, but he said, "Teacher should plan it, ask it, be quiet." And that's obviously about referring to the wait time, the think time, and teachers not answer the questions themselves, but I wanted to ask you this about the planning, tried to reflect on, did I specifically plan to ask certain questions? Or was I just being responsive and did they just come naturally? So what do you think in terms of that? Should teachers plan the questions that they're going to ask? Obviously there'll be those questions planned in multiple choice quiz, but in a lesson and verbally should we plan or should we just aim to just be responsive with it? I think it's a bit of both. I think that especially if you're new to the teaching profession, I think planning's really helpful because I think I remember when I first started teaching, I used to get stuck because I used to be like, "Oh, I wasn't expecting the students to ask me that question," or "I wasn't expecting that question would yield such a 30 blank faces," because there were like, "What the heck's they're talking about?" And I think that's important as well, because I was reading some of the research around, "You can write a really powerful question and you think's great," but actually what you think is a great question might actually be a terrible question because not intentionally, but you just might be and that's maybe because A, you haven't tried it on someone, or B, haven't really given it a thought, and actually the question probably is even too difficult, so you completely lost, you lose the student straight away because they just don't understand it, or the questions that obvious that the students are like, "Well, why I ask it in the first place?" And I think that's really important as well because I see some teachers asking questions where the students know the answer before they've even asked it or finished asking it, and so there isn't that degree of challenge there, but equally I see some teachers asking questions and they just completely lose them, or they ask questions where they expected a response, but the student didn't give them the response they expected, so then it just froze them. So I think, yeah, I think for many reasons, planning questions important and I would definitely advocate for it, even I will still do it now, because even 15 years into teaching, I think it's important, and maybe I don't always write them down, but I'll think about it when I'm thinking about what I'm teaching, and I think that's because I want us to consider is that the right question to ask, and are the students guys who understand it before I even asked it? Well, you aware that Tom Needham is an English teacher on Twitter, and a fantastic blogger, and he's written about scaffolded question design, so he'll start off with a question, so if the final question that he's asking is for his students to explore Macbeth's paranoia, but I suppose this links with the curse of knowledge, where we assume that students understand what paranoia it is and in that context, so his first question will be, do we understand what paranoia is, what it means, what it looks like, and then he'll gradually use all those answers to build up to that point of this is the question that I want to ask, this is the higher order thinking question, the challenging question, and I know your really big fan of scaffolded approaches, teaching to the top, but also teach mixed ability classes that involve everyone, so basically, would this have a really good approach then to scaffold our questions to order to make it inclusive and make those challenging questions still challenging, but more accessible. Yeah, and that colleague I watched last week did it so well and switched between Cole calling and a bit of think-pair share, and yeah, it was fascinating to watch, and I even said to her when I gave her feedback, I said, did you realise you would do it x, y and z, and she said, no, because what I really like to do when I observe the teacher's actually write down, I'm not, I'm not watching what's happening when I'm observing a lesson, I'm writing what's happening all the times I write, what the teacher's saying, because I think it's really powerful and I actually wrote down, after I write fast, but I actually wrote down her whole question sequence in a few minutes, and yeah, it's back with her, and it's so powerful, but she did it in such a way, like you say, that, that created a scaffold so that the students who were working at a much lower level were able to answer a question and be successful, and then students who were working at a higher level were able to answer the same sort of sequence of those, the content was, but at a much higher level, and it was brilliant and it's hard to do, it's really hard to do, and it takes time to get it right, but if you can sequence those questions, then it really helps to bring everyone along, yet, so I'm a big advocate of it, and it's definitely one of the principles that I've said would be great for powerful question in the book, is sequencing questions sequencing? Well, you mentioned this less observation with a colleague, and you're seeing a leader in a school, but it sounds like as a classroom teacher, teaching geography, that you also took a lot away from this as well, that you found it helpful in that sense, which again comes back to what we said before, about the power of working together collaboratively, especially with questioning. It's such an easy thing for us to do, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I love watching lessons, I love it, I love people coming to watch me, I always say, come on in, I have the door open all the time, come in, come in, come in, come watch me, give me some feedback, I think it's brilliant, it's, I wish all schools would like it, I've worked in schools where it's not like that, so I do understand where someone walking to classroom is like alien and they shut the door and don't come in, I'm not interested, and I feel that's a shame, because I love what Dylan Williams said about how every teacher can improve, every teacher can get better no matter where you're up to, and I think, yeah, I wish all schools would like it, I wish that was the culture. Because that's a thing, your book on powerful questioning, be really, really helpful to any teacher at any point in their career, primary secretary subject, because it's so important. The online course on evidence-based education is fantastic about questioning, but with both of them then the key to the success will be the application and the reflection and that process with it. So it's a really important part and there should be this literature and there should be these courses available, but then is how you put it into action in the classroom, isn't it? Yeah, and I've actually not told anyone yet, so this is probably a sneak peek really, but the book does have lots of activities, because I've never wanted this to be a, I've not done it with the other book, but I wanted this to be a book that teachers could use with other teachers or within their department or cross colleagues. So there's lots of activities where it's thought revoking and even creating questions at that moment when they've read something about the hallmarks of writing a good question, solving the activities where I'm encouraged, I want the readers to be encouraged to, to, well, create a question now or I'm given a scenario of this has happened in the classroom and what would you do next or if this happened to you, what would you do next? And so yeah, but that I wanted to do that this time because like you say, it'd be great if that's what teachers take from it using it. So my final question is really about the students and students asking questions and I'll share a story with you. This is not something that I did in all of my lessons, it wouldn't be possible, but we would watch some video clips from the historian Dan Snow about 1066 and I had a little picture of this story Dan Snow and
i'n gwybod, 'Wa'r gwasanaeth yn yw'r gwasanaeth. Mae'r gwasanaeth yn yw'r gwasanaeth yn yw'r gwasanaeth yn yw'r gwasanaeth. Mae'r gwasanaeth yn yw'r gwasanaeth yn yw'r gwasanaeth. gera roe go Pubol Tail Llybar transfでft, yог da tu ond am roe'n redeас a loch yn Regardless of ein gweith o'r dangdi'r d gwasanailleu, còn hyngatll witeb i'am i Honestly, hyngatll I coi'i дорог ygu perleCloud a'r zu요fiwais voeg, hyngwch chi nwi'n indig a'r zu'n gweith o'r gwasanailleu, a'r gwasanailleu, a'r gwasanailleu, a'r gwasanailleu a'r gwasanailleu, a'r gwasanailleu a'r gwasanailleu, a'r gwasanailleu a'r gwasanailleu a'r gwasanailleu
your time today to talk again does here at evidence-face education. It's been brilliant. I loved it. It's good to chat Kate as always and yeah it's I hope people enjoy it whether they're listening to it while they're driving to work or back from work or running or whatever it might be so I hope it's given a bit of a glimpse and an insight into to our thoughts on questioning. [Music]
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Michael Charles discusses his current role as a system principal working with Year 11 students, focusing on teaching, learning, revision, and assessment, and his recent book "3CTs" with David Goodwin for early career teachers.
Questioning is often overlooked in education due to past emphasis on assessment and feedback, but it is a daily, critical practice; the new book on questioning aims to make this abstract pedagogy concrete.
There is a place for both hands-up and no-hands-up (e.g., cold-calling, mini whiteboards) questioning strategies; effective use depends on classroom culture, purpose (e.g., retrieval vs. discussion), and student confidence.
For reluctant students, building a supportive culture through a "question lag," providing thinking time, narrating the value of mistakes, and using strategies like think-pair-share can improve participation.
Multiple-choice questions are powerful for diagnostic assessment when well-designed, but teachers often avoid them due to challenges in designing effective distractors; they help assess knowledge and application.
Summary:
In this podcast episode, Michael Charles explores the critical role of questioning in education, a practice often overshadowed by trends in assessment and feedback. He highlights that questioning is deceptively complex, as it requires making an abstract pedagogy concrete, which is why his latest book took the longest to write. Charles advocates for a mixed approach to questioning, combining hands-up and cold-calling techniques based on classroom culture and purpose.
For instance, mini whiteboards work well for quick retrieval tasks, while hands-up fosters discussion. He emphasizes the importance of building a supportive classroom culture to engage reluctant students, using strategies like "question lag" (giving extra thinking time), narrating the value of errors, and employing think-pair-share to boost confidence. Charles also addresses multiple-choice questions, noting their diagnostic power when carefully designed, though teachers often struggle with creating effective distractors.
Throughout, he underscores that questioning is not a one-size-fits-all tool; it depends on context, student relationships, and the teacher's ability to adapt. Drawing from his classroom experience with Year 11 students, Charles provides practical advice for improving participation and deepening learning. The conversation concludes that effective questioning is a skill that requires ongoing reflection, collaboration with colleagues, and a focus on fostering a safe environment where all students feel valued and willing to contribute.
FAQs
The episode focuses on questioning in the classroom, its importance, and practical strategies for teachers.
He suggests that trends like assessment and feedback have taken priority, and questioning is seen as easy or abstract, making it harder to address.
Yes, Michael believes hands-up questioning has a place when combined with other strategies like cold-calling, depending on classroom culture and purpose.
Michael advises building a supportive culture, using strategies like giving extra thinking time, narrating that wrong answers are okay, and offering warm encouragement.
He finds them powerful for diagnosing knowledge, but emphasizes they must be well-designed to truly reveal what students know.
He recommends observing other teachers, using videos of techniques like cold-calling, and reflecting on strategies in a supportive environment.
Chat with AI
Loading...
Pro features
Go deeper with this episode
Unlock creator-grade tools that turn any transcript into show notes and subtitle files.