Blog Post Six

Asking Questions...

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?
1. Teachers are Allowed to Ask Questions!

A teacher asking students questions...? HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM! It seem that we have this question asking thing backwards.. Shouldn't the students be the ones asking the questions!? Actually the answer to this question is yes AND no. Yes, the students should be asking questions, but no, they should not be the only ones asking them. I'm sure we all experienced "that teacher" who had the their mind set that they knew everything there is possible to know. WRONG! There isn't a single person in the world who knows all there is to know, and sometimes teachers portray that they do know everything. This is a very good reason in itself to ask questions because we DO NOT want our students feeling like we think we know everything. 2.Get Your Students Involved by Asking the Right Questions!

The main reason behind Project Based Learning is to get the students involved. Asking questions is a way to initiate this involvement. But, as a teacher you must know the right questions to ask in order to get what you are looking for when you ask them. Often in classrooms, the responses teachers get when asking questions are "Yes" or "I don't know". From Joanne Chesley's video, Asking Better Questions, we learn that there are two types of questions: opened ended questions and close ended questions. A close ended question allows students to give such feed backs as the "Yes" or the "I don't know" responses. When teachers ask these close ended questions, they are getting exactly what we asked for when we don't allow thoughtful kinds of responses, as Chesley states. In contrast, an open ended question gives the person answering the question scope to give the information that seems to them to be appropriate. These types of questions allow for students to be thoughtfully engaged in their responses.
3. Ways to Ask Better Questions! Now that we know what questions we want to ask, we need to learn how to ask these questions better. From Maryellen Weimer's blog post, Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom, we learn the three ways to ask questions better. The first way to asking questions better that she talks about it "Preparing the Question". When teachers do not prepare their questions, they tend to get those confused looks from there students. Go figure, we ask something that just pops into our head, most of the time not making any sense. I would be just as confused as the students! But when we prepare, we are able to provide the students with clear, intriguing questions. The second way to ask better questions to "Play with the Questions. When we play with the question, leaving it unanswered, the students are then allowed to open their minds and think about the question. Usually after the question is answered, the students tend to let it slip from their minds. But when allowed to think about it without having it directly answered, we see more thoughtful responses. And the final way to ask better questions that Weimer talks about is "preserving the Question." When students ask good questions, share them with other students/classes! While we do not all think along the same lines, it is very interesting to see what others are thinking and it often opens our minds to more ways of thinking.


Now that I have read about the right questions to ask and better ways to ask them, I will be using these techniques in my own classroom! I want my students to be open minded, therefore I will ask open ended questions!