Depth of dialogue

published:December 2009

How deep is the dialogue that takes place in your classroom?

Research evidence
Teachers often leave less than a second after asking a question before asking another question or answering their own question, if no answer is given by a pupil.  The only sort of questions that can be answered in such a short time are those needing little thought, so one of the outcomes of this short ‘wait time’ can be superficial classroom dialogue. 

Teachers who use more effective questioning techniques:

• take time to frame questions that develop pupil understanding
• pause after asking a question to allow pupils to think
• discourage the practice of using ‘hands up’ to indicate that a pupil knows the answer and instead, expect everyone to be prepared to answer, possibly after discussion in pairs; and
• ask pupils to explain the reasons for their answers.

Your evidence
You might like to investigate the quality of the dialogue that takes place in your classroom during question and answer exchanges. You could tape record a ten-minute session. When you review the tape, you could write down the questions you asked and the answers your pupils gave. Or you could ask a colleague to observe a session and note down the exchanges that took place between you and your pupils. You could consider:

• What kinds of questions produced brief, superficial answers (3-4 words) from your pupils?
• What kinds of questions seemed to provoke them to think more deeply and give more extended answers?
• How often did you encourage pupils to elaborate on their answers and explain their reasoning?
• What kinds of questions did you use the most/least?

Next steps
Now you have had chance to reflect on the depth of classroom dialogue, you might like to work with a colleague to brainstorm open-ended questions with a high level of cognitive demand that help pupils to:

• speculate, hypothesise, imagine e.g. ‘How do you think the hero would feel
  if …?’
• synthesise information and ideas e.g. ‘What do you think really
  happened …?
• evaluate, make decisions and judgements e.g. ‘Would it be fair if …?
  transfer ideas, make connections and apply knowledge e.g. ‘How is what we’ve found out useful …?’ and
• explain their ideas e.g., ‘Can you tell me more about …?’

 

Could you plan to use the questions you devise in another lesson and monitor the effect on your pupils’ answers?