If a teacher notices students seem confused and provides a prompt to encourage…

Concept. In the micro-teaching framework every core teaching skill is identified by three things together: the pupil condition that triggers it, the teacher behaviour it consists of, and the purpose that behaviour serves. The skill of probing questions is defined as the set of follow-up questioning moves — prompting, seeking further information, refocusing, redirecting and increasing critical awareness — that a teacher uses when a pupil response is absent, incomplete or unclear, so as to carry the pupil from a surface-level answer to a fuller, more reasoned one.

Application. Here the trigger is a pupil condition of confusion, that is, an inadequate or unformed response. The teacher behaviour is a prompt — a hint or clue offered after that inadequate response; prompting is itself the first named component of the skill of probing questions. The decisive detail is the stated purpose: the prompt is given to encourage deeper thinking, that is, to raise the level of thought demanded of the pupil — not to reward the response, not to re-present the material, and not to lower the demand of the task. Trigger, behaviour and purpose together match the definition above.

Cross-check against the other listed terms.

• Reinforcement — acts on the consequence side, after a response has been given, using praise or other rewarding signals so that the behaviour producing it becomes more likely to recur. It adds no new cognitive demand.

• Scaffolding — names the broader Vygotskian support strategy of graded temporary aids (modelling, cue cards, task breakdown, partial worked examples) planned across a task within the zone of proximal development and withdrawn as competence grows. Its purpose is to make an otherwise out-of-reach task manageable by lowering its demand, whereas the prompt described here is given to raise the level of thinking; it is also a general support strategy rather than one of the named micro-teaching skills to which the other listed terms belong.

• Repetition — re-presents the same content or instruction in the same form to aid retention through rehearsal, which does not raise the level of thinking demanded.

• Probing — is the one term of the four defined by follow-up questioning that acts on an inadequate response in order to deepen it.

Result. The pedagogical skill demonstrated is probing.