HURDLE REFLECTION 1

DEEP QUESTIONING AND ENGAGEMENT

Surface learning is characterised by learners’ meeting minimum learning requirements through engaging in practice with minimal effort. This therefore disregards analysis and integration, leading to lack of engagement with learning outcomes. Contrastingly, deep approaches enable students to understand content, actively integrate new information in their learning, develop analytical skills, and are task-centred and appropriate (Gordon & Debus, 2002). It is pivotal to act as the facilitator who structures lessons that deepens learning through providing variations in questioning in order to facilitate such a process (Hattie & Jaeger, 1998). Particularly, questioning allows students to think deeply, developing higher-order thinking skills which leads to cognitive development and deep learning. Thus, establishing effective questioning techniques is integral in order to “stimulate learning, develop the potential of students to think, drive to clear ideas, stir the imagination…it is also one of the ways teachers help students develop their knowledge more effectively” (Shanmugavelu et al., 2020).

I believe that the DeBono Six Thinking Hats activity is a crucial way to develop effective questioning skills in order to stimulate deep learning. It maximises collaboration, considers the multifaceted nature of teaching/learning, uses parallel thinking, reduces conflict, stimulates innovation, views issues from multiple angles and makes thorough evaluations (DeBono, 2019). It helps Identify where each student is as a class and individual and thereby helps teaching align with learning outcomes. Socratic question techniques that develop from clarification towards probing assumptions, evidence and perspectives, asking expansive questions that simulates higher order and deep thinking. Enabling students to understand the multifaceted nature of answers and develop critical and creative thinking (Gose, 2009). Ultimately, ensuring questions develop in difficulty, for example, from recall i.e. ‘What is a prop?’ to ‘Evaluate the usefulness of props in Ancient Greek theatre’ ensures students move from lower order to higher order thinking, shifting from ‘remembering’ in Bloom’s Taxonomy (2001) to assessing and analysing. Thus, the AITSL Standards 1.2, 1.5, 2.1, 2.3, 3.3, 3.5, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2 (2017) are recognised in order to understand that students will respond in different ways to questioning, thus maintaining a rapport is crucial in order to strengthen their willingness to participate and understand differentiation.

de Bono. (2019, March 3). Thinking with hats intro [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvChZ4DAghY

REFERENCES

• Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2017). Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards
• de Bono. (2019, March 3). Thinking with hats intro [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvChZ4DAghY
• Gordon, C., & Debus, R. (2002). Developing deep learning approaches and personal teaching efficacy within a preservice teacher education context. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 72(4), 483-511.
• Gose, M. (2009). When Socratic dialogue is flagging: Questions and strategies for engaging students. College Teaching, 57(1), 45-50
• Hattie, J., & Jaeger, R. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning: A deductive approach. Assessment in Education: principles, policy & practice, 5(1), 111-122.
• Shanmugavelu, G., Ariffin, K., Vadivelu, M., Mahayudin, Z., & Sundaram, M. A. R. (2020). Questioning Techniques and Teachers’ Role in the Classroom. Shanlax International Journal of Education, 8(4), 45-49.
• The de Bono Group. (2019). Six Thinking Hats. https://www.debonogroup.com/services/core-programs/six-thinking-hats/