Blog Post #4

Asking Questions: What questions do we ask? How do we ask?

 

What do teachers need to know about asking students questions in order to be a effective teacher? This a hard question to answer. After reviewing the sources for this assignment I have decided that there are quite a few ways for teachers to go about asking questions that will get the best response. One way is by asking open minded questions instead of close minded questions. Most students love it when teachers ask close minded questions on tests because then they just have to put simple answers like "yes" or "no." But do these questions really help these students learn? No they don't. The only way for teachers to know if students understand the material, they have to ask open minded questions. This would include asking a question and then putting "explain why or why not." This way the student would have to elaborate on the question and their answer would help the teacher know whether or not they got the material. The video Asking better questions in the classroom by Joanne Chelsey really puts this principle into perspective. Another video Questioning Styles and Strategies shows how switching up the way in which you ask students questions can also be beneficial in seeing how much your students know. He started by calling on a child randomly, and then he let that child choose who they want to answer the question next, while at the same time switching up the question style and making the students think harder about their answers. I thought this video demonstrated the best way to ask students questions. Not only did he ask the students thought provoking questions, but he also asked them in a unique way that kept them on their toes. Another way to go about asking quality questions according to Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom, is to prepare questions, play with questions, and to preserve good questions. You can prepare questions by just making sure that you are prepared to ask your students quality questions that pertain to the material and make the students think outside the box. Playing with questions just means that you leave the question unanswered and it gives the student time to think about what they think the answer is. Finally by preserving good questions you are using questions again that generated the best responses from students. After reading and watching these sources I have to say that the best questions to ask students are open minded questions that gets them thinking and using their head, and how we ask students these questions is by using different questioning methods that keeps the students engaged.