Expert Questiong in Teaching

Expertise in many professions is easy to visualize and conceptualize.  Imagine the radiologist reading an MRI and seeing the tell-tale signs of a torn labrum.  Or, imagine a chef listening for the right sizzle in pan before browning a salmon filet.   Mechanics know what tools to use for specific jobs, like when to use a torque wrench and avoid stripping threads.

 I can imagine asking specific questions that, by their answer, would reveal the expertise. How do you know that's a sprain and not a severe strain?  How do you know when the filet is ready to flip? 

Teachers develop expertise using their own "tools" over thousands of hours teaching and planning.  I've been thinking about what questions expert teachers have ready answers to.  These questions, and other like them, might also be used to help develop the expertise of novice teachers.

Here are a few questions.  What questions would you add to this list?

1. When is group work a good idea?  When is it better to ask students to pair up?
2. What types of activities should you  ask students to do for homework in your discipline?  Which types of activities don't lend themselves to homework? 
3. If you request that class come to attention, what's the first thing that you do? And if that doesn't work, what's next on your play list? And then what?
4. Under what conditions is peer editing likely to succeed? When is it likely to fail?
5. When is it appropriate to use an analytic rubric?  a holistic rubric?  a single-point rubric?
6. Let's say that you feel that students are not understanding a topic (say... identifying authorial voice in a short piece of writing) that you thought would be a simple lesson.   You know that you could do a "fist-to-five" vote, a "3-2-1 summary," or create a multiple choice question.   Which is the best option?
7. What's the best way to group heterogeneously?  Homogeneously?
8.  A second semester senior doesn't turn in a homework assignment in the first week of class.  How much slack do you allow?   When do you enlist parents?  What if it were a sophomore?