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Getting from Q to A: Effective Questioning for Effective Learning

2005; Agricultural Education Magazine; Volume: 78; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

0732-4677

D. Barry Croom, Kristin S. Stair,

Education and Critical Thinking Development

The student teacher was doing a great job with the lesson. She was moving along enthusiastically presenting high quality content in an interesting way. She was being very clear in her explanations and her rapport with the students was top notch. Yes sir, she was going to be a great teacher someday. And then it happened. The student teacher was up in front of the class asking a general question. To the casual observer, her Are there any questions? was nothing special. To me it was an intellectual sneeze, in an otherwise disease free lesson. The well-planned lesson began to degenerate into a questioning frenzy. The more questions she asked, the less she engaged the class and the fewer correct answers she received. It was obvious that she had contracted the cold of teaching - the question. In case you are not familiar, a is when the question goes out to the entire class, and is not directed to any student in particular. As an educational tool it is practically useless. Yet teachers use it as if it were one of the greatest teaching tools available to them. A student teacher was once observed asking 90 questions in a 30-minute period. At 20 seconds per question, there was not much time for students to respond. What is wrong with this type of questioning, why is it detrimental to the learning process, and how can teachers sharpen questioning skills and be more effective? The first mistake that teachers make is using questions as a form of classroom management. Teachers, new ones particularly, are taught to make certain that the class is engaged in the lesson so as to prevent discipline problems from cropping up. As a result, they turn to questioning as a primary mode of classroom management. Questions are best suited as diagnostic tools that indicate student academic progress or assess critical thinking. These teachers naturally assume that flinging question after question out to the class is engaging the students in the lesson. In fact, the opposite is often true. Whenever a teacher presents a general question to the class, three things might happen. One, the student who knows the answer will blurt it out before anyone else in the class has had a chance to think about the question and formulate an answer. The quick draw answer wins, and the other students are not rewarded because they were too slow in coming forth with the correct answer. The second thing that might happen is that the student who craves attention will answer the question even though they are clueless as to what the correct answer is. They are motivated by a strong desire for attention, and call-out questions give them an opportunity to get some. The third thing that often happens is that the student who is really unsure of his or her academic ability or is having difficulty understanding the subject matter will not attempt to answer. Therefore, the teacher is clueless as to the student's academic progress, at least until test time rolls around. Trying to correct deficiencies in student learning is very difficult to do after the unit test has been administered. Questions are tools of the teacher's trade. They must be used skillfully to be effective. Here are a few suggestions for improved questioning skills. Ask Directed Questions Call on individual students to answer questions. Let's say that you are teaching a unit of instruction on forestry. Call on a student, and then ask the question. Bob, what is the common name for Ouercus alba? If Bob doesn't know the answer, probe a little bit to find out what he does know. Bob, first of all, give me the names of all the oaks we have studied in this class thus far. The key point is to get Bob to give you a correct answer to at least a portion of the question. The message this will send to the class is that they are expected to know the material and are responsible for their own participation in the class. …