Pedagogy First. Technology Second.

Plan Questions Before the Lesson

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Plan Questions Before the Lesson

Improvised questions default to recall, not because recall is wrong but because planning stops there. Anderson and Krathwohl works as a planning tool: write questions at every level.

Suggested technology lesson planning or slide preparation tool · Informed by Anderson & Krathwohl

Find this under Ask better questions

Part of The Quality of Questions in 04 Questioning & Discussion, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.

Why you might use it

The problem it may help with

Questions asked on the spur of the moment default to recall. The card is precise about why: not because recall is wrong but because planning stops there. In the flow of a lesson, the question that comes to mind is the one that is easiest to form.

Writing questions before the lesson, at every level of Anderson and Krathwohl's taxonomy, turns the framework from a poster into a planning tool.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

Planning a lesson on rivers, a geography teacher writes six questions into the slides in advance, from what is erosion through to how would you defend this village, and why there. In the lesson the questions are simply ready, instead of needing to be invented mid-explanation.

Try it

A way to begin

For one lesson this week, write three questions in advance at levels you know you would not improvise. Put them where you will see them.

What to notice

Reading what happens

  • The difference in students' answers between your planned questions and your improvised ones.
  • Which planned questions you actually asked. The ones that never got used tell you something about the lesson's shape.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

  • Plan the pivotal questions, not a script. The point is to have the harder questions ready, not to close down where the discussion goes.
  • Improvised questions keep their place; responsiveness is part of the craft. Planning removes the ceiling, it does not remove the improvising.

Technology second

Where technology fits

A lesson planning or slide tool keeps planned questions where you'll actually use them. The planning is the strategy; the tool just stores it.

Drafting a ladder of questions across the levels is planning work AI can accelerate, through the approved tool in your setting, with the framework the card names built into the prompt:

A prompt to start from, shaped by the STAIR approach (Specific, Tell, Actionable, Iterate, Role)
Act as a secondary English teacher. Create a set of questions on the poem I am teaching to Year 10, one question at each of these levels: remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, creating.

Label each question with its level. Keep every question concise and answerable in discussion, not as an essay task.

Do not include answers, model responses or commentary.

[paste the poem or topic details here]

The levels are a planning tool, not a hierarchy of worth: recall is foundational, not inferior. Draft with the tool, then choose and reorder for your class. Iterate until the ladder fits the lesson you're actually teaching.

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

This is Anderson and Krathwohl put to work: the taxonomy read not as a description of questions but as a discipline for writing them. The card’s attribution stands as published: Anderson & Krathwohl.

The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Questioning & Discussion.

Keep exploring

Where next?

Back to this strategy in 04 Questioning & Discussion, across to what you're trying to improve, or into all 144 at once.

Want to take this further?

Support is available

Pedagogy First gives you a starting point. If you want support exploring how approaches like this can work across your school, trust or professional learning programme, that work is available.

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