Better Questions, Better Thinking
Why This Learning Experience?
This self-paced professional learning experience is designed by an experienced educator to help you learn on your own schedule. Participants complete practical activities, connect ideas to real classroom practice, and build confidence through application-focused learning — with instant, auto-graded feedback along the way.
Learning Experience Overview
The questions educators ask can shape the thinking students do. When classroom questions focus primarily on recall or finding a single expected answer, students may have few opportunities to explain reasoning, make connections, justify ideas, or extend their thinking.
Better Questions, Better Thinking gives educators a practical approach for designing and using questions that make student thinking more visible. Participants learn the Ask → Probe → Extend framework to strengthen initial questions, respond productively to student answers, and move learning beyond simple recall.
Through practical examples and interactive activities, participants practice transforming everyday classroom questions into purposeful question sequences while maintaining appropriate rigor and giving students time and support to think.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify the relationship between classroom questions and student thinking.
- Distinguish question difficulty from cognitive demand.
- Select questions that align with the intended learning goal.
- Apply the Ask → Probe → Extend framework.
- Use probing questions to uncover student reasoning and misconceptions.
- Use extending questions to deepen, connect, or transfer student thinking.
- Improve questions that unintentionally limit student thinking.
- Use wait time, participation structures, and response strategies to broaden opportunities for students to think.
- Develop purposeful question sequences rather than relying on isolated questions.
