Blog Post #4

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

- Resources
-Rule #1
-Rule #2
-Rule #3
-Rule #4


Source: Photo found here.

Resources:
The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom
Asking Questions to Improve Learning
Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom
Asking Better Questions in the Classroom - YouTube
Questioning Styles and Strategies - YouTube
The Right Question Institute
Open Ended Questions - YouTube

Asking questions as a teacher can make or break a discussion. After reading and watching many valuable sources, I have concluded that there are four main rules to follow in being an effective teacher with our question asking skills. Those rules are:
1)Ask Open Ended Questions
This is important because it allows the students to form opinions and to brainstorm before answering. With a closed ended question, the student is only able to answer with a simple "Yes." or "No." and there is no thinking involved. When you ask an open ended question, it allows all of the students to think about the question and have a thought process. You can extend their thought process and allow them to hear other students thoughts on that subject by telling the class to turn to the person next to them and discuss each other's answers or by calling on multiple students so their brains stay stimulated and they keep thinking and evolving their answers.
2)Prepare Questions
It is important to prepare questions for the students in every subject because it can make the question more thorough. My history teacher always said, "You never know what you think until you write it down." I have found this to be more true as I have gotten older and it is true in this situation as well. When you are in class and do not prepare questions, you tend to ask questions as they pop in your mind. As great as that is, sometimes the question may not be as clear as you think and you have to try to make it clearer but it may just cause confusion. When you write down questions, Faculty Focus suggests to prepare questions that are thought provoking and to make sure it is asked at the right time.
3) Use Different Questioning Styles
Using different questioning styles is important to maintain the students attention. In the video Questioning Styles and Strategies, the teacher used four different questioning styles: mastery, interpersonal, understanding, and self-expressive. You will be teaching many different students with just as many different ways of learning so keeping a variety of questions on hand is a very useful tool. The mastery question could be a question to describe something. This is a way to let the students list and you can call on multiple if not all the students to add to a description. The interpersonal question is a "YOU" question. What do YOU like most about this? This is a fun question that gets the students thinking about personal preference and there are no wrong answers so it gets the reserved students involved. The understanding question style shows the comprehension level of the students and could be a group discussion before calling on specific students. The self-expression style is a way to let the student use his or her imagination. Tell them to draw a picture or use another way of self-expression. This will get the students thinking about what they like and do not like and lets them express it in a way they feel comfortable.
4) Provide Positive and Stimulating Feedback
Each student will have his or her own opinion and when teaching young students, they may still be trying to figure out what that opinion is. When they answer questions, especially interpersonal questions, provide feedback that is positive and stimulating. Let them know that you heard their answer and think that is a very interesting point of view but then you can expand on their answer by asking "In what ways?" or by probing for more details. You can also ask if anyone has a different opinion and allow a class discussion to allow the students to see all of the possibilities of that answer.