The shape of a good question

Teachers are told to ask good questions and rarely told what makes one good. There are at least three distinguishable kinds, and they are useful for different things.

The first checks recall. What year did it happen? These have one answer, take seconds, and tell a teacher who has the information. They are often dismissed as low level, which is a mistake: you cannot reason with facts you do not have, and checking cheaply is worth doing.

The second asks for application. Given this situation, what would happen? These require a method to be selected and used, and they are where most of the learning in a lesson usually sits.

The third asks for judgement and has no single correct answer. Was this a reasonable decision? Which of these two explanations is better supported? These are the most valuable and the most frequently asked badly, because a judgement question with no criteria attached produces opinion rather than reasoning. The fix is to supply the criteria inside the question: which explanation accounts for more of the evidence?

Students can use the same classification on themselves. Working through a chapter and asking only recall questions produces the feeling of understanding without the substance. One application question and one judgement question per chapter, written by you before reading the summary, is a far better use of fifteen minutes than rereading the chapter twice.