Quality Questioning: Research-Based Practice to Engage Every Learner
By: Jackie A. Walsh & Beth D. Sattes
Format: Softcover book  |  Pages: 192  |  Copyright: 2005

This book, by the developers of QUILT, offers practical guidance on using effective questioning techniques to advance thinking, learning, and achievement for all students.

Engaging All Students Is a Challenge. Studies show that a small number of students tend to dominate class interactions.  Students from the subgroups named in NCLB have the lowest rates of classroom participation.  About a quarter of all students never participate in class at all. Educational consultants Jackie Acree Walsh and Beth Dankert Sattes, both former teachers, present a solution to this pattern of disengagement in Quality Questioning: Research-Based Practice to Engage Every Learner.

Formulating Quality Questions.  Effective questioning strategies engage all students in answering; advance student thinking, learning, and achievement; bring classrooms to life.  Walsh and Sattes present an in-depth look at how quality questions can transform classrooms by promoting instructional purposes, focusing on important content, facilitating thinking at higher cognitive levels, and communicating clearly.

Teachers and Students Learning Questioning Skills. Knowing how to formulate quality questions is only the first step in the process of quality questioning, according to the authors. "As we worked with teachers, the research on effective teacher learning led us to develop a professional development program that was long term and personalized, one that incorporated peer coaching and opportunities for teachers to learn together. But many teachers were still finding it difficult to change the dynamics of classroom questioning. From our conversations with these teachers emerged an aha: Teachers must also teach new questioning behaviors to students and adopt classroom norms that support these behaviors."

This Book Is a Practical Guide for Teachers. Quality Questioning shows teachers of all grade levels and subject areas how to teach new questioning behaviors to students and how to adopt classroom norms that support these behaviors. Included are practical tools and ideas for preparing and presenting questions, prompting and processing student responses, teaching students to generate questions, and reflecting on questioning practice.

Inside School Improvement
Creating High-Performing Learning Communities
By: Jackie A. Walsh & Beth D. Sattes
Format: Softcover book  |  Pages: 306  |  Copyright: 2000

Public demands for improvement and accountability are being directed at every person involved in education--administrators, teachers, parents, community members. and the students themselves. This book is specially designed to "feed and nurture the busy and dedicated people who are striving valiantly to meet these demands--especially education leaders who want to create high-performing learning communities in their schools. This kind of community draws on individual strengths to brim about continuous improvement. Included here are practical tools, activities, and resources that you can put to work right away. Stories, reflections, and discussions of theory provide inspiration as well as food for thought and dialogue.

As you listen to teachers, principals, parents, and students speak honestly about what has worked (or not worked) in their schools, you will gain new perspectives on the importance of the learning culture in your school and the broader learning community in which schools operate. You will reconsider the roles of leadership, shared goals, and assessment. You will learn what it means to become, as well as to help create, a SMART learner (one who is Successful, Motivated, Autonomous, Responsible, and thoughtful).

By uniting the worlds of education research and practice, Inside School Improvement invites you to unleash the best and brightest inside yourself and inside your school.

"This book should be required reading for principles, teacher leaders, and school leadership teams. Schools, whether large or small, elementary or secondary, rural or urban or suburban, will benefit."  -- Shirley M. Hord, Program Manager, Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.

"This 'must have' road map offers schools the 'just-in-time' support needed for a successful continuous improvement journey." -- Betty Hale, Vice President, Institute for Educational Leadership.