Better Questions, Better Learning: Deeper than “Do you get it?”

Within the classroom, a key component to a successful lesson is the ability to ask questions. Asking questions allows for students to have an opportunity to participate in class as well as giving the teacher a chance to gauge the level of understanding among the students. However, merely asking surface level questions such as “do you get this?” is not sufficient. This self-study examined the impact of deeper-level questions on student engagement to see if asking deeper-level questions would encourage students to become more invested in class. To define whether or not a question was deemed to be deeper-level, it was compared to Bloom’s Taxonomy, a model that categorizes questions and learning objectives based on their purpose and specific words used (Spence, 2019). There are multiple levels: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. If the question reached the level that requires students to apply information, it was deemed deeper-level for this research. Lesson plans, field notes, and video recordings were collected from five different high school science classrooms over a semester. This practice of utilizing deeper-level questions is essential for pushing students in their engagement and understanding of the content.