Use your classroom walls to bring questioning to life for your learners, differentiating learning in the process

General Introduction

This blog is part of my Differentiation and Adaptive Teaching Knowledge Base.

I use the terms differentiation and adaptive teaching synonymously. To me, they are the same, as genuine differentiation has always involved adapting your planning and your teaching to meet the needs of the learners in front of you.

For me, differentiation is all the practical strategies, activities and techniques teachers use to personalise learning.

For ease, we can break that down into my five categories of differentiation: Activities, Questioning, Words and Writing, Things the Teacher Can Do and Things You Can Ask Learners to Do or Use.

This blog falls into the category of questioning.

Turn Great Questions into a Wonder Wall

Create a space on your classroom wall and name it the ‘Wonder Wall’.

You can make this look like a wall by chalking a brick pattern onto black paper.

When learners think of questions and there is not enough time to explore these, ask them to write them on a post-it note and to stick this onto the ‘Wonder Wall’.

Here are three ways you can then use these questions in your lessons:

Pick a Question

When learners have finished a task on which the rest of the class are still working, invite them to go up to the ‘Wonder Wall’ and to select a question from it.

They should try to answer this question either in writing or through discussion with another learner who has finished the main activity.

If a learner successfully answers their question, they can go back to the wonder wall and swap it for a different one.

Wonder Wall Class Discussion

When enough questions have been added to the ‘Wonder Wall’, plan a lesson, or section of a lesson, in which you distribute these to pairs or groups.

Invite learners to discuss their questions and to note down their thoughts.

When they’ve done this, you have three options:

Ask pairs/groups to team up and share their questions and answers with each other.
Select different pairs/groups to share their questions and answers, which you then use as stimulus for a whole class discussion.
Ask everyone to stand up and then say: ‘Find someone you haven’t spoken to today. Take it in turns to tell each other what your question was and what answer you came up with.’

All three options have benefits.

I particularly like the third one as it tends to create a great atmosphere and encourages learners to seek out peers they don’t normally speak to.

Teacher-Learner Discussion

Build some time into lessons during which you invite one or more learners to select a question from the ‘Wonder Wall’ which you then discuss with them.

You can use this in several ways:

As a reward for learners. (They get the privilege of having a one-to-one discussion with you.)
As a tool to facilitate one-to-one interactions with specific learners you want to target. (For example, a learner who you feel is struggling to articulate themselves confidently.)
As a stretch and challenge tool. (There are two ways this works. First, if the questions on the wonder wall are sufficiently challenging in themselves. Second, if you can create a Socratic-style discussion with your learner, that pushes them to think deeply about whatever question they’ve taken from the wall.)

How does having a Wonder Wall help you to differentiate?

In the first case, the learners who take the questions from the ‘Wonder Wall’ are challenged to think further and to produce work that is beyond what the rest of the class is doing.

You might like to actively encourage learners to think of big, difficult or unusual questions to put on the wall.

I’ve seen the technique used in some classrooms where the Wonder Wall is reserved exclusively for big, challenging questions that learners think up.

In the second case, the activity is structured around questions created by learners.

This encourages engagement and gives a sense of ownership.

In addition, by using discussion and encouraging the sharing of answers, all learners have an opportunity to be involved in the activity and to learn from each other.

In the third case, you can provide tailored support to the learners with whom you discuss.

You can pitch your questions and comments at an appropriate level and provide the right degree of challenge and/or scaffolding, depending on your assessment of learners’ needs.

Creating and Using Question Displays – A Simple Scaffolding Strategy

Display questions or lists of questions around your room.

Learners can then use these to help them with their work.

This is scaffolding at its simplest.

The questions become a tool the learner can access in their environment. They can use this tool to help themselves be more effective with their learning.

Question displays can involve any of the following:

Questions specific to the area of study.
Questions that learners can ask themselves as they are doing their work. (This is self-questioning, a metacognitive strategy.)
Questions relevant to a particular type of work (for example, the writing of paragraphs).
Questions connected to a certain skill (for example, analysing sources).
Questions concerned with a specific aspect of thinking (for example, evaluation).

Learners can use the questions any time they like.

That could be when working independently, when working in pairs, or when working in groups.

You can encourage learners to see the questions as a tool by modelling how to use them, and by frequently signposting them.

The major advantage of having lists of questions displayed in your room is that they support learners’ thinking.

Learners can look to the lists for ideas, for guidance, or for suggestions as to how they might engage with the lesson content.

In a sense, the displays are prompts.

Scaffolds on which your learners can call.

You might like to develop the use of question displays by working with your learners to create them.

For example, divide the class into groups.

Give each group a heading, like ‘Questions that help us think’ or ‘Questions that help us to be creative’, a piece of sugar paper and some pens.

Ask groups to create a display containing useful questions connected to their heading.

These can then form the basis of your wall display.

(A tip here is to get groups to come up with a question list first, which they then share with you. This gives you a chance to run through the list and either sign it off or to ask learners to review or improve some of their questions, before they create the display.)

How can you use question wall displays to help you differentiate?

Question displays can support learners who are struggling with some aspect of the work.

They do this by providing prompts that function in much the same way as teacher modelling or scaffolding.

They can challenge learners or stretch their thinking.

For example, a question display can contain a series of generic extension questions for learners to attempt once they have finished the main activity.

Question displays also encourage learners to work independently.

Learners can use them when they get stuck, rather than immediately turning to the teacher for support.

This helps create agency and encourages learners to see themselves as being in control of their learning.