Today we had a training given by Steve Olsen on the use of questions in the room. He said that the effective use of questioning in the classroom is one of the hardest things to do. It really got me thinking about how I question kids, what I question them about... even how long I give them to answer my questions. Apparently 10% of the kids answer 80% of the questions and teachers average only about 2 seconds of wait time after each question. To say nothing of the fact that the vast majority of the questions asked are lower level thinking questions. Good Lord! Is that my classroom as well? What can a first grade teacher do to ask more efficient and effective questions?