Technology + Higher Level Questioning = One AMAZING lesson!

One of the big-pushes that one of our teachers has been striving for is the level of questioning in the activities that she does with her students. Her goal is for STUDENTS to ask higher level questions but first the teacher wants to start asking them so that students can get a feel for what they sound like and how to respond to them. We are both thinking of ways to get ideas so that students can start asking these questions but that is a work in progress. When we planned the activity her original plan was to start out with a Kahoot in which students would gather knowledge background knowledge, however she decided to do this at the end which turned out even better! (More on this in a minute.)

So the actual activity had to do with measurement using non-standard units of measure. She wanted to have her kids lie out on a piece of paper and have their partner trace them. Once they were finished with tracing, students would take random items such as markers, pencils, etc and measure the size of the drawing. Once they were done, they would gather information via pic-collage. The teacher did a great job of using a rubric to help the students along their journey.

Once the students were finished, they came back inside in which the teacher had her Kahoot ready to go. This was the first time the teacher had ever ran a Kahoot so we had to explain to the students how it was used and not just to press any response. They had to talk it over with their partner first and then respond. We both found that Kahoot was the gateway to asking open-ended / higher level questions! She was able to call on a few students so that they could defend and explain their answer! This one student was asked why he chose and answer and he was like, "Oh because my partner told me to!" The teacher probed until she was able to get a response from that student! I was very proud of this teacher for going the extra mile and really "reaching" to get answers out of these students!