Chapter Nine of Lemov's book gives ways to challege students to think critically. The first way is to ask them questions, but not just any questions: carefully planned questions. The order in which you ask questions should guide students from a basic knowledge of the material to more complex understanding. The reason you ask questions also varies, depending on what you want to acccomplish. You can use "Stretch It" to "push students when they've answered correctly" (Lemov 237); "Ratio" to hand over the responsiblity of doing academic work to the students; "Break It Down" to correct student errors; and "Check for Understanding" to "strategically test for understanding (Lemov 237).
Ask only one question at a time becuase this focuses attention on only one aspect of the topic. Asking more than one quesiton will either cause confusion or gloss over one of the questions and make students think you didn't plan your questions very carefully.
You should also plan to ask questions from simple to complex. Start with the concrete and move toward the abstract and to think more deeply and broadly. Start with questioning the students about facts, then move on to prioritizing that information, then apply their knowledge to comparing and contrasting more broadly.
You should expect students to answer a lot of your questions right, but if they are answering all of your questions correctly you are not asking hard enough questions. On the other hand, if they are not answering about two out of three questions correctly, you are not teaching the material effectively and need to back up.
Ask only one question at a time becuase this focuses attention on only one aspect of the topic. Asking more than one quesiton will either cause confusion or gloss over one of the questions and make students think you didn't plan your questions very carefully.
You should also plan to ask questions from simple to complex. Start with the concrete and move toward the abstract and to think more deeply and broadly. Start with questioning the students about facts, then move on to prioritizing that information, then apply their knowledge to comparing and contrasting more broadly.
You should expect students to answer a lot of your questions right, but if they are answering all of your questions correctly you are not asking hard enough questions. On the other hand, if they are not answering about two out of three questions correctly, you are not teaching the material effectively and need to back up.
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