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How did teachers use questions and prompts?

Levels of challenge posed to students High challenge Medium challenge Low challenge Motivational urging
Whole class X W   Z Y
Small group   W   X
Individual Z   Y W  

One way of looking at differences between lessons was to see how, when, and to whom teachers posed challenging questions. In this grid we demonstrate four kinds of teaching. Teacher X poses a highly challenging task for the whole class and then goes round urging small groups to get on with it, but without offering further input to help them, or to simplify the task. Teacher Y talks to the whole class about the work ethic, then sets individual low challenge tasks. Teacher Z poses low challenge tasks to the whole group, possibly with the intention of including everyone, and then inserts high challenge tasks for individuals. Teacher W poses high challenge tasks to the whole group for public discussion; medium challenging tasks go to small groups for discussion and shared work; low challenge tasks go to individuals. We asked one teacher who follows the W pattern about this and he starts by thinking about the demands of the task: 'If there is a low level task to be done it can be given as individual work' rather than 'if they are doing individual work I shall give low challenge tasks'.