Questioning persists at the heart of learning. The challenge facing teachers is how to move beyond simply asking questions to check for student recall to asking open-ended, thought-provoking, and intellectually engaging questions. Only essential questions with these characteristics will empower students to develop higher cognitive-thinking skills. Eliciting purposeful questions and responses from students will help them construct new knowledge and expand the meaning of what they are learning. The importance and benefits of using questions are described. The author shares 6 sequential, yet interrelated, stages with recommended action steps as strategies for explicating effective questioning strategies. To greatly expand the effectiveness of questioning strategies, teachers must build students’ capacity to explain, interpret, apply, change their perspectives, and transfer their learning in new situations.