"Intriguing questions" during LISD's visit to UISD

During a recent field trip to United ISD, neighboring LISD administrators and educators got to sit in on some United ISD classrooms in action. Afterwards, Dr. Marcus Nelson mentioned that he was intrigued by the caliber of questions that were being used at UISD. Apparently, UISD is making some effective use of questions that evoke "higher order thinking skills". These are the skills that occupy the upper level of what is known as Bloom's Taxanomy of Learning. Nowadays, it might be called different things but Bloom came up with still serves as the basis of proper questioning techniques in the classroom. At the bottom of the pyramid is "remembering" or "recall". The upper levels include "analyzing, evaluating and creating". These are the levels which teachers strive to reach when questioning their students.

Questions that promote higher order thinking skills may be used at any grade level and in practically any subject. The thinking teacher will carefully select questions that will trigger deeper thinking by students. Hopefully, this will be more often than not.