Blog Post #4

"What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?"

What questions do we ask? How do we ask? What style of questions should we ask? If you, as a teacher, can answer these questions and carryout correctly formatted questions in your classroom, you will be a very successful problem-based teacher! The reason teachers use questioning strategies in the classroom is to improve learning by guiding the students to think and create their own personal ideas about topics.

When asking questions in the classroom, as a teacher, I will be modeling and exampling for students for how they should study and create their own ideas. Here is a few simple steps to follow when forming questions for your classroom: 1) plan questions ahead of time (not only the question but also when you will ask the question, along with follow up responses and questions), 2) make sure the questions that you ask are leading towards the courses goals, 3) stay away from leading questions (because it suggest the answer within the question) but include open-ended and closed questions, 4) when asking a "yes or no" question, have a follow up question for additional information so that the students can support their reasoning, 5) be direct and clear, 6) try to avoid asking more than question at a time.

As teachers respond to the answer a student has given, to the student, it is very nerve-racking because they do not want to give an incorrect answer and "look" dumb to their peers. As a teacher, I want to be encouraging but I also want to let the student know what is incorrect within the response. Here are some simple steps for how teachers should respond to students answers: 1) after asking a question, wait 3-5 seconds to allow students time to think and formulate their response, 2) if no one answers re-word the question, if that does not work, call on a student to answer to grab their attention, 3) avoid interrupting a students response, 4) show interest in all of students responses even if they are wrong, 5) when responding back to answers give the students more info so that they can continue thinking about the topic, 6) if a students response is incorrect, make acknowledgment of where it was incorrect and ask more questions leading them to brainstorm and come up with a correct or more correct response.

After taking a few educational courses at Cumberland University last semester, I already know a little about questioning strategies and how they can be applied. After reading The Right Way to Ask Questions, I was introduced to a new perspective about questioning strategies. The main reasoning that I found this useful and that it jumped off the page to me was having to ask specific questions. It seems simple and easy but when I read further along I become more interested in their point of view. They stated that asking, "do you all understand?" is not a sufficient of enough question because the students may not know that they do not know. The reason this attracted my interest as much as it did is because I  was one of those students. I did not know that I did not know and I am paying for it in college by having to work extra hard in my studies. If I would have been brought up in today's educational society with more questioning strategies and problem-based learning, I think I would have it a little more easier today.