How to ask good questions?

I find it understandable that I am not yet adept at asking grade-level appropriate questions. "How did the board balance with the fulcrum off-center?" would fall into the above category. "What did we learn about balance?" would fall into the category of vague and obtuse. I'm not sure I find anything more frustrating than failing to really phrase a question that can be grasped by students at a myriad of levels.

The next question is how do I develop a lesson with questions that will hammer away at the essence of what I am teaching? I think I need to be more attentive to the concept, and actually talk through some of the questions in some of these initial lessons. For balance, that might have been asking questions that lead to the big idea of finding a balance point.

• What did you notice about the beam when the fulcrum was in the middle, and the 10 cubes were all at the end? Did it balance?


• Why do you think it didn't balance?


• How did you move the fulcrum to make it balance?


• What do we know about the weights on each side if the beam is level?

I was excited when one of the 1st graders pointed out that the side that was shorter (with all the cubes) was the same weight as the long side (see the image above from my science notebook). I am not so sure I really helped him along to make it happen though. Is 1 of 24 a good percentage? Right. As I said to one of the kids, science is confusing and that is ok. Today was more than enough evidence that I need to improve my questioning, and build that into my planning.