According to Hiebert and Wearne (1993), there are four different categories of questions mathematics teachers pose in their classroom dialogues with students:
questions generally ask students to recite previously learned or currently available facts, describe previously learned rules, or recall a previously discussed topic.
- Describe Your Strategy
questions generally ask students to tell how they solved a problem, or to describe another approach to solving the same problem.
- Generate Problems
questions ask students to create a story to match a number sentence, or to create a problem to fit a set of given constraints.
- Examine Underlying Features
questions ask students to explain why a procedure is chosen or why it works, or asks students to consider the nature of a problem or a solution strategy.