Change how you think about questioning with sixty ready-to-go, tried-and-tested question stems covering each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy

The Art of Questioning

Questioning is one of the most important tools at the teacher’s disposal.

We ask hundreds of questions every day.

It’s one of the ways, if not the primary way, that we communicate with learners.

The quality of the questions we ask has a direct impact on the progress learners make.

By asking better questions we can stimulate better progress.

Here, we’ll have a look at the relationship between questioning and Bloom’s Taxonomy.

What do questions do?

Questions make demands of the people to whom they are posed.

In our case, they make demands of learners.

These demands are generally cognitive – we ask learners to think in certain ways, to engage in certain mental operations – and, as such, closely tied to learning.

If we ask questions that demand simple cognitive processes, or ask learners to guess rather than think, then we are failing to maximise the amount of learning that happens in our classrooms.

It is for this reason that we should pay attention to the questions we ask, rather than relying on thinking up good questions on the spot or hoping that those we ask are just good enough.

Bloom’s Taxonomy, with its clear delineation of cognitive processes and its framework for mastery learning, is a useful tool we can use to structure our questions:

Level 1: Knowledge
Level 2: Comprehension
Level 3: Application
Level 4: Analysis
Level 5: Synthesis
Level 6: Evaluation

No matter what prior learning a learner possesses, or what level they find themselves at relative to the curriculum or to their peers, we can use the taxonomy to support them through our questioning, to challenge them and to help them to make great progress.

An easy way in which you can start using the taxonomy to inform your questioning is to print off a list of the keywords connected to each level and to then stick this up near your desk.

(I’ve included a set of ninety keywords at the end of the post. You’ll also find these throughout the Bloom’s Taxonomy Knowledge Base.)

Straightaway you have an aide memoire to which you can refer when asking questions.

So, for example, if you do not have sufficient time to plan your questions prior to a lesson, you can instead look to your list of keywords while you are teaching and use these as the basis of the questions you ask.

Doing this makes it easier to pose challenging questions as well as questions relevant to your learners’ current knowledge and understanding.

Another helpful approach is to sit down and develop a suite of staple questions, connected to the subject or age-group you teach, based on the different levels of the taxonomy (or you might prefer to focus on the top three or four levels).

You can print out this set of questions, laminate it, and keep it to hand as a scaffold for yourself.

Over time, as you practice asking these questions, you will come to internalise them.

Eventually, the scaffold becomes superfluous, and you can rely solely on your memory.

Bloom’s Taxonomy Question Stems

Another tool at our disposal are question stems.

These are the beginning parts of questions.

The command sections that indicate what process we would like learners to engage in.

They are accompanied by the subject part of the question, indicating the content we would like learners to apply the process to.

Here are some examples:

What caused the Great Depression?
How would you explain friction?
To what extent do you agree that fairness is more important than justice?

The questions stems are:

What caused …
How would you explain …
To what extent do you agree …

We can take these stems and use them in a wide range of contexts.

This means that, if we develop a well-conceived set of question stems, using the taxonomy as our starting point, we can use these to construct good questions in most settings.

And here is just such a tool …

Knowledge Question Stems

What happened after …?
How many…?
Who was it that…?
Can you name the …?
Describe what happened at …?
Who spoke to …?
Can you tell why …?
Find the meaning of …?
What is …?
Which is true or false …?

Comprehension Question Stems

Can you write in your own words …?
Can you write a brief outline …?
What do you think might have happened next …?
Who do you think …?
What was the main idea …?
Who was the key character …?
What differences exist between …?
Can you provide an example of what you mean …?
Can you provide a definition for …?

Application Question Stems

Do you know another instance where …?
Could this have happened in …?
Can you group them by characteristics like …?
What factors would you change if …?
Can you apply the information to …?
What questions would you ask …?
From the information given, can you develop a set of instructions about …?
Would this information be useful if you had …?
How could you use …?

Analysis Question Stems

Which events could have happened …?
How was this similar to …?
What was the underlying theme of …?
Why did … changes occur?
Can you compare … with …?
Can you explain what must have happened when …?
How is … similar to …?
What are some of the problems of …?
Can you distinguish between …?
What were some of the motives behind …?
What was the turning point in …?
What was the problem with …?

Synthesis Question Stems

Can you design a …?
Can you see a possible solution to …?
If you had access to a complete set of resources, how would you deal with …?
Why don’t you devise your own way to deal with …?
What would happen if …?
How many ways can you …?
Can you create a new use for …?
What might an alternative …?
Can you propose how we would …?
What might a plan look like that …?

Evaluation Question Stems

Is there a better solution to …?
Can you assess the value of …?
Can you defend your position about …?
Do you think … is a good thing or a bad thing? Why?
How would you have handled …?
What changes would you recommend to …?
Do you believe …?
How would you feel if …?
How effective are …?
What do you think about …?

A Great Starting Point

The lists are a great starting point.

You can take them and use them to develop your own questions, as well as your own question stems (the lists are not exhaustive).

Another advantage of having a list of question stems is that you can share these with learners.

They can then use them to come up with questions of their own, which they can then ask to you, to themselves or to each other.

A final point to note is that if you are teaching an exam class, it is likely that the questions set by the exam board will be based on a limited range of question stems, with these most likely linked to the levels of the taxonomy.

To help speed up the process of exam preparation, you can analyse past papers to identify the relevant question stems, before making a list of these and using them regularly during lessons.

This will familiarise learners with the question types they are likely to meet, as well as the best ways in which to respond to these.

Full Bloom’s Taxonomy Word List

Knowledge Keywords:

Arrange, Define, Describe, List, Match, Memorise, Name, Order, Quote, Recognise, Recall, Repeat, Reproduce, Restate, Retain.

Comprehension Keywords:

Characterise, Classify, Complete, Describe, Discuss, Establish, Explain, Express, Identify, Illustrate, Recognise, Report, Relate, Sort, Translate.

Application Keywords:

Apply, Calculate, Choose, Demonstrate, Dramatize, Employ, Implement, Interpret, Operate, Perform, Practise, Role-Play, Sketch, Solve, Suggest.

Analysis Keywords:

Analyse, Appraise, Categorize, Compare, Contrast, Differentiate, Discriminate, Distinguish, Examine, Experiment, Explore, Investigate, Question, Research, Test.

Synthesis Keywords:

Combine, Compose, Construct, Create, Devise, Design, Formulate, Hypothesise, Integrate, Merge, Organise, Plan, Propose, Synthesise, Unite.

Evaluation Keywords:

Appraise, Argue, Assess, Critique, Defend, Evaluate, Examine, Grade, Inspect, Judge, Justify, Rank, Rate, Review, Value.