Feb 10 2013

Here’s the question….

What’s the grade?!

Zeb Friedman’s Grade that Question

I have previously mentioned Zeb Friedman’s Grade that Question resources on the Suffolk Maths site; this such a good idea and will certainly help students become familiar with what is required at each level or grade. (See GCSE revision materials, Foundation Tier Materials and Higher Tier Materials).

There are many other resources where questions are given by level or grade, also resources to help students understand the various levels / grades; I have included useful links on the Progression page.

It struck me that grading the questions would make an ideal starter, this could then seamlessly turn into a main activity where students try the questions! I have therefore added this to the Starters site, I have also added some posts from this blog so anything I think useful for a starter is in one place. Note Here’s the Diagram ….what’s the question? (with additions since I first wrote the post), Settlers and Ever wondered why; Year 11 will be getting the fractional and negative indices ‘Ever wondered why’ worksheet from Just Maths as a starter this week!

It struck me whilst writing this post that we could turn the title round, supply the students with a topic and ask for a grade …. question. We could of course also turn round Here’s the Diagram ….what’s the question – let them read a wordy description and then draw the diagram – perhaps a useful exercise for Mechanics A Level students.

Now wondering about other possibilities for Here’s the ….. , what’s the …. ? resources!

Jul 7 2012

Rich Questions in Mathematics

See also: Rich Tasks and the Questions page updated, 2016.

Ofsted (The UK Office for Standards in Education, inspect and regulate services which care for children and young people, and those providing education and skills for learners of all ages) as part of their judgement on the quality of teaching quite rightly include ‘the extent to which teachers’ questioning and use of discussion promote learning’. Research has shown that often teachers’ questions are closed questions which require only lower order thinking skills from students. There are some excellent resources available to help teachers think about the types of questions they can use to support students’ learning. Not just for Maths but applicable to any subject I’d recommend very highly the Brighton and Hove Assessment for Learning project – Questions worth asking. This includes many practical suggestions for the classroom and concludes with a self analysis.

The project includes the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy as an aid to thinking about the level of challenge / thinking required for a question. One of the consistently popular posts on this blog is Bloomin’ Mathematics which has links to several resources on Bloom’s Taxonomy. Of particular interest here on questions is an excellent resource: This booklet of sample questions has been created as part of a project funded by the NCETM on Questioning the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Blooms Questions NCETM

Blooms-Questions-NCETM Download

For further questions which require higher order thinking skills see the Levelopaedia from Kangaroo Maths which has numerous probing questions and also the focused assessment materials which make it clear what students should be able to do and give probing questions. Whilst we happily don’t have levels any more these remain great questions.
Focused Assessment Level 4 Focused Assessment Level 5 Focused Assessment Level 6
Focused Assessment Level 7 Focused Assessment Level 8

Diagnostic Questions – brilliant diagnostic questions – use this with your classes and find out what your students know – or are in a muddle with!

Further Resources:

Multiple Choice questions can really help expose misconceptions as mentioned above, there are many other sources too and note Daisy Christodoulou’s comments on the use of Multiple Choice questions.

Hosted by the National STEM Centre I do like Susan Wall’s Thinking Questions, open–ended questions which should certainly make your students do just that – really think.

Nrich have some excellent advice on questioning, see Working Effectively with All Learners which offers questions and prompts to encourage discussion and Using Questioning to Stimulate Mathematical Thinking.

See Dylan Wiliam’s paper on Rich Questioning.

For more always / sometimes / never and also some true/false questions use CIMT’s excellent Mathematical Proof.

See also: Rich Tasks and the Questions page.

For many Proof resources – see Proof – 2021.

Apr 2 2011

Bloomin’ Mathematics

(checked & updated February 2018)

It seemed that everywhere I looked today I kept finding Kathy Schrock’s ‘Bloomin’ Google‘ where she has categorised Google tools according to Bloom’s revised taxonomy. Her blog post explains its origins.

Thinking about the different levels of the taxonomy is useful when planning questions for students. So often questions relate only to the lower order thinking skills.

Nrich has a small number of articles on Bloom’s taxonomy, this by Jennifer Piggott showing the hierarchy of thinking skills together with skills and question cues and this by Jenni Way on using questioning to stimulate mathematical thinking, with an addendum also which includes ideas for questions to use for student investigation.

Lindsey Shorser has written a short paper on the interpretation of Bloom’s taxonomy for Mathematics.

Not just for Maths but applicable to any subject I’d recommend very highly the Brighton and Hove Assessment for Learning project – Questions worth asking. This includes many practical suggestions for the classroom and concludes with a self analysis. The project includes the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy as an aid to thinking about the level of challenge / thinking required for a question.

For further questions which require higher-order thinking skills see these legacy resources, the focused assessment materials which make it clear what students should be able to do and provide probing questions. (No levels any more – but still some great questions).

Focused Assessment Level 4 Focused Assessment Level 5 Focused Assessment Level 6
Focused Assessment Level 7 Focused Assessment Level 8

Diagnostic Questions – brilliant diagnostic questions – use this with your classes and find out what your students know – or are in a muddle with!

Hosted by the National STEM Centre I do like Susan Wall’s Thinking Questions, open–ended questions which should certainly make your students do just that – really think.

See Dylan Wiliam’s paper on Rich Questioning.

For always / sometimes / never resources and also some true / false questions use CIMT’s excellent Mathematical Proof. There are many such resources on TES – try some of these resources. See this post for further Proof resources.

For questions to really get your older students thinking, try these resources.