How well do you plan your questions? Part II

Previously.... How well do you plan your questions? Part I suggested using cubes to plan various levels of questions.  Part II goes into greater detail regarding the creation of the cubes as well as the nuts and bolts of getting started.  Enjoy! 

So How Do I get started...

Ideas to plan for questioning:

• Search for question stems online- there are tons.  Be cautious though, you can use a stem and create a complicated application question and NOT a higher level, open-ended question.
• Team plan and write out the questions you and your colleague(s) will ask.  This adds validity and accountability in instruction if you and your colleague are are asking the same questions to their students and them compare the responses.  Team collaborators can compare question outcomes and raise the level of instruction by working together to alter practices and share resources to keep the students successfully accessing higher level thinking skills.  
• Use the cubes- the cubes will help to practice creating questions in a fun way, but it will demonstrate to students how to form questions also. You may have to turn a cube to make the stem make more sense, but it does help you to get the language started. 

Ideas to teach questioning skills: 

• In General: Ask the types of questions you want to hear from your students.  Children have no problems asking questions, but they do not always know how to answer questions.   **Remember expressive language develops AFTER receptive language!  They begin to hear and understand LONG before they begin to speak.**
• Create teaching flash cards for all six sides of each cube.  Teach each icon and begin to ask the WH questions on the red cards/cube. Most teachers already ask excellent WH questions.   As you ask questions to your students, you can verbally identify them using the flash cards.  
• Have your students ask specific types of questions, i.e. those WH questions.
• As you notice 50-75% of your class are proficient creating and identifying questions on demand, introduce the helping verbs or the blue cards/cube.  You may be introducing helping verbs very quickly.  Just know your class.
• As you notice 50-75% of the class being successful asking and identifying the questions you have taught, move to the higher level actions on the green cards/cube.  
• Once students understand the icons, you can allow them to play with the cubes.  

Rules for cubes...

• Cubes can be used in centers, stations, partners, collaborative teams, individually, etc. 
• Cubes are tools.  When TOOLS become TOYS they are TAKEN away.  
• Allow the children to "free play" for 30-60 seconds when introducing the cubes to reduce novelty.  
• Give clear instructions for "free play" such as, "You may play with the cubes for 30 seconds.  You must keep them on your desk or in your hand.  You may roll them, or stack them.  You may not throw them or share with a friend."  
• For PreK, cubes can be experienced in small group with the teacher instead of large group instruction.  They may also require additional time to allow for the novelty to wear off.  Allowing the cubes to be experienced in centers can help the "playtime period" move more quickly.  
• Once "free play" is finished, students are more likely to use the cubes appropriately.  
• I highly recommend you write a lesson plan for teaching the early childhood students to use the cubes to ask questions with PreK and K.  The cubes are fun to play with, but to just tell a student how to create a question with the cubes is more complicated than one might think.  

**But wait, there's more....

So you have seen the cubes, you know how to use the cubes, you have instructional strategies for using the cubes with students, but where do you get them?  Click the images below to download and print the 3 cubes on card stock. **Great project for those helpful parent volunteers at the beginning of the year**

5WH? Cubes (print on card stock)

Linking Verb Cubes (print on card stock)

Bloom's Taxonomy Cubes (print on card stock)

If you would like to use the foam cubes by Learning Resources, I found them here on Amazon.

Click the image below to download and print mailing labels sized to stick on the foam cubes by Learning Resources.  **Note: I am a little OCD and designed the icons so that if you cut them out on the black line they will fit on the cube.  Unfortunately when you print the borders do not always fall exactly on the pre-cut label - but I cut them out anyway....

1" cube labels- for all 3 cubes

Thanks for stopping by to read about higher level questioning!  Feel free to follow Special Education Perspectives, Trudy_Little on Twitier, TrudyLittle on Pinterest, Trudy Little on Livebinders and Google+.