Blog Post #6

"What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?" -Dr. Strange

We all know by now that in order for project based learning to be successful, the students in your classroom must be involved and engaged in the learning process. Asking students' questions is the best way to increase student interaction.

To answer Dr. Strange's question, What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher, I needed to do a little research on questions in the classroom and what types of questions are out there. There are two types of questions: open-ended questions and closed-ended questions. An open-ended question encourages participation and provides more information, whereas a closed-ended question can be answered with a simple yes or no response. Joanne Chesley makes a valid point to think about in her YouTube video, Asking Better Questions in the Classroom Pt. 1. Chesley points out that we are getting exactly what we ask for when questioning in the classroom. The educator needs to put thought into the types of questions before they teach a lesson. If we ask our students closed-ended questions, we are not encouraging them to open their minds and engage in the learning process, therefore we get a closed-ended response.

Now that I know what kind of questions there are and what kinds I will be using in my classroom, I need to know how to ask these questions effectively. Maryellen Weimer recommends three actions to preform that have the potential to improve our questioning in her blog post, Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom. First she recommends preparing the questions. Instead of spending so much time focusing on the content and just asking a question when it comes to you, Weimer suggests writing out the questions ahead of time and thinking about appropriate times to ask them and it is really irrelevant to the learning process. Will this question make the child to think or will it give me a closed-ended response? Next Weimer suggests playing with the questions. Often students will stop thinking about a question once the teacher announces that it has been answered correctly. Instead, she tells us to give the students time to put thought into the question. Whether it be to talk among their peers collaboratively or for them to brainstorm for five minutes on a piece of paper. The educator can also ask the question and give the students overnight to think about an answer. Playing with the questions keeps the questioning process engaging and allows the student to be more involved in the learning process. If educators only announce the correct answer immediately after the question, students are not using their thought process to really think about the question in depth. Weimer also recommends preserving good questions. Questions can be kept she says. If a student in a previous class asks a great question, share it with your other classes. Revising our own questions with questions the students are asking can help teach the content better.

There are different types of questions we need to know about and how to use them correctly in order to be an effective teacher. We also need to know how to improve our questions in order to be effective. Educators do not know everything. Even if our little six and seven year old students think their "Superhuman Teachers" know everything in the world, we don't. We as educators need to teach students the importance of questions and how they make us think. As Maryellen Weimer says, there are going to be students who ask us questions that we are not able to answer. When that day comes for me as an educator I will be excited to find out the answer with my students, and show them more personally the importance of questions.

"We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers." -Friedrich Nietzsche Students will only "hear" or engage in the questions educators ask them if they are "in a postition" or required to find the answers themselves. We need to be able to provide them with the types of questions that require them to think and explore their minds more.