Teachers ask questions all day long.
We ask them to check for understanding.
We ask them to keep students engaged.
We ask them because silence feels uncomfortable.
And yet…
Have you ever asked a question and gotten an answer that felt technically correct but somehow… empty?
Or tried to start a discussion that just sort of sat there?
Or found yourself rephrasing the same question three different ways, hoping something would spark?
The problem isn’t that teachers aren’t asking enough questions. It’s that we’re not always clear on what we want those questions to do.
Every question needs a job.
The Shift: Before You Ask a Question, Decide Its Job
Most of us were never taught to think about questions this way.
We were taught to:
- make questions higher-level
- make questions open-ended
- make students think
But “make them think” isn’t specific enough to guide planning.
Instead, try this:
Before you ask a question, decide what you want the student to do as a result.
I use five categories:
- Think → process, analyze, connect
- Believe → form opinions, take positions, evaluate ideas
- Feel → experience emotional connection or empathy
- Do → take action, apply learning
- Prepare → get ready for what comes next
When you know the job of the question, writing it becomes much easier, and the answers become much more meaningful.
I promise: this small change will transform discussion in your classroom.
Watch the Livestream (with Classroom Examples)
I walked through this framework with real examples in a recent livestream
You can watch the video here:
The Five Types of Questions (with Examples You Can Use Tomorrow)
Let’s take a closer look at each of the five types of questions.
Questions That Make Students THINK
These are the questions most teachers are aiming for, but they often get watered down into recall.
Thinking questions are about processing, not just producing an answer.
They ask students to:
- analyze
- compare
- infer
- connect
Examples:
- What patterns do you notice here?
- How does this connect to what we learned yesterday?
- What might happen if we changed one variable?
A small shift that matters:
Instead of asking, “What is the main idea?”
Ask, “How did you determine the main idea?”
These questions use that middle band of Bloom’s taxonomy (analyze, evaluate, and some understanding).
Most of your questions will fall into this category, so it’s worth getting good at them.
If you want help with crafting this kind of question, I’d start with the Depth and Complexity framework.
Questions That Shape BELIEF
This is where things get interesting.
Belief questions move beyond thinking into judgment, perspective, and values.
They ask students to take a position.
Examples:
- Do you agree with the character’s decision? Why or why not?
- Which solution do you think is most effective?
- What should have happened instead?
Important distinction:
Thinking questions explore ideas.
Belief questions ask students to commit to one.
That difference changes the level of engagement immediately.
Often, with believe questions, I’m using a Socratic technique where I’m leading students towards an inevitable (hopefully!) conclusion.
Examples:
- Can we agree that this was the best first step?
- If that was the best first step, what does that tell us about this other thing?
- Now that we know that, what do we have to believe?
Questions That Make Students FEEL
These are often overlooked, especially in the upper grades, and they’re incredibly powerful.
Feeling questions create connection.
They help students:
- care about the content
- see themselves in the learning
- develop empathy
Examples:
- How do you think this person felt in that moment?
- What part of this surprised or frustrated you?
- When have you experienced something similar?
For gifted learners especially, this matters.
They often think deeply, but if we don’t also engage how they feel, we miss an entire dimension of learning.
If you can make students feel something about their learning, engagement is guaranteed.
There’s some neuroscience behind this, too, as we want the limbic system to activate in order to promote memory consolidation.
An unintended consequence of this is that everyone has a better time when their emotions are involved, as well as their brains.
This is one example of how you can’t really separate the social/emotional from the cognitive. You can start here to learn more about the social/emotional side.
Questions That Lead Students to DO
These questions move learning into action.
They answer the unspoken student question:
“So what am I supposed to do with this?”
Examples:
- How would you apply this in a real-world situation?
- What would you do next if you were solving this problem?
- How could you use this strategy in another context?
- Thinking about what we’ve learned, demonstrate your understanding of this in _____.
These are the questions that make learning transferable and visible and tangible.
Without them, knowledge tends to stay stuck in the lesson where it was introduced.
Every lesson should result in doing of some kind.
Questions That Help Students PREPARE
This is the one most teachers don’t plan for, and it may be the one that makes the biggest difference.
Preparation questions are about readiness.
They help students anticipate, organize, and approach future learning more effectively.
Examples:
- What will you need to remember for tomorrow?
- What might be challenging about the next step?
- What should you pay attention to as we move forward?
- What questions do you still have before we continue?
These questions reduce cognitive overload.
They create a bridge between learning moments.
And perhaps most importantly, they give students a sense of control over what’s coming next.
These questions are often invisible (or missing entirely) in lesson plans, but they are what make learning stick.
They’re particularly important for students who are perfectionists, struggling, at-risk, or disengaged. We have to prime the pump.
I wish I could persuade every teacher to add this type of question with deliberate intention.
The Mistake Most Teachers Make
Most teachers are not struggling because they don’t know how to ask questions.
They’re struggling because they’re asking questions without deciding what those questions are meant to do.
So we default to:
- “What do you think?”
- “Why?”
- “Can you explain that?”
And those aren’t bad questions.
They’re just purposeless, and part of the problem with that is that you don’t know if they worked. If you don’t have a goal for the question, you’ll never know if the question was successful.
Better questions don’t come from being more creative or edgy.
They come from being more clear about the role of the question in the students’ thinking.
A Simple Way to Try This Tomorrow
You don’t need to redesign your entire lesson.
Just try this:
- Pick one part of your lesson
- Decide what you want students to do
(Think, Believe, Feel, Do, or Prepare) - Write 2–3 questions that match that goal
That’s it.
When the question has a clear purpose, the response almost always improves.
If You Want This to Become Automatic…
If You Want This to Become Automatic…
Right now, you might be reading this and thinking:
“This makes sense… but will I actually remember to do it when I’m planning?”
That’s a fair question.
We have all learned tons of things at PD that we promptly forget. The trick is making something a natural part of your planning.
That’s exactly why I created the Questioning Course.
It gives you a simple system you can return to again and again so you’re not starting from scratch every time you plan a lesson.
Inside, you’ll find:
- clear frameworks (like the one you saw here)
- examples across content areas
- practical strategies you can use immediately
So instead of hoping your questions lead somewhere, you know they will.
👉 Start using intentional questioning in your classroom
Final Thought
Questions are one of the most powerful tools we have, but only if we use them on purpose.
The goal is not to ask more questions.
The goal is to ask the questions that really move the thinking needle.
This is the framework that works for me, and I hope it works for you, too.
