This discussion topic struck me as very interesting when I first read the overview on what this blog would focus on. I had never put much thought into what kind of questions I would ask my students or in the manner that I would ask them. I never thought of it as important until now. The sources that were given to help figure out the answer to this questions gave a lot of insight on how questions should be asked and the appropriate way that they are developed. In "The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom", it is noted that just asking a class if they understand a topic that you may have just covered is not enough. To really get students engaged in what you're talking about you have to ask specific questions. When asking specific questions it is not always necessary for them to be directed at one person right away. The goal of any teacher is to get your students thinking, so by asking a question to the whole class they all have a chance to formulate answers in their own head. Once the whole class has been given a chance to think of an answer, then you can move on and begin to select students at random to give their ideas. By selecting students at random you make it clear that not just one person will be called on all the time and not just the "smart kids" will be asked to answer. This was another common trend seen Mr. Johnson's post.
The design of the question is also particularly important. We are informed while reading "Asking Questions to Improve Learning" that there are three main types of questions. All three types are useful and can be used for specific situations to elicit the type of response that you want. Closed questions are useful when you are looking for only one specific answer and can be used when preparing for an exam or reviewing over previously covered concepts, managerial questions are used when you want to make sure that your students understand assignments given, and closed questions are used to elicit multiple responses from the students. As mentioned previously, it is the main goal to keep the students engaged in what is being presented to them, to keep the wheel turning.
Sometimes we can come up with questions on the spot while we're in the midst of covering a lecture, but sometimes they take a little more preparation than that. While you are preparing your lesson plans for the day it is helpful to include places in which you could stop to ask a question to make sure everyone is on the same page. By adding in these predetermined questions it gives us a way to stay on track and make sure that we don't just spend a whole hour of discussion without adding in any reinforcement. Once you have decided on the questions you are wanting to ask, think about ways in which you could modify them to get students more actively involved in answering them. By going through these processes you find out which questions work best for you and you can preserve good questions, i.e. questions that had a good response level and were thought provoking amongst students.
By using all the afore mentioned techniques we have many ways to develop questions to ask our students. We always want our questions to relate to the subject being taught and to, at times, challenge our students by broadening their thinking.
Don't forget to include links and title/alt modifiers.
ReplyDeleteKasey,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog post. This was very well thought out and organized. I can tell that you read the information and sources provided to us because we both included a lot of the same points and explanations in our posts. My only suggestions would be to add your title and alt tag modifiers, and maybe you would like to add the thinks to the sources you used so that others can view them if they become interested in this particular blog post. I didn't find any spelling or grammatical errors in your post. This blog post was on time, easy to read, organized and I also really liked the images you chose. Well done!