Blog Post #4: "What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?"

The first source I choose to look at was The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom. This post focuses on how the teacher is asking questions wrong and moving on before the students fully understand the material. Straying away from the traditional rising of the hands, or calling on a student right after asking the questions is not recommended. A technique the blog suggests is to pause after asking a question to the class as a whole. Then this allows each student to think of the question before calling on one specific student to answer. They suggest coming up with different methods of asking questions and having a discussion with the class to keep it interesting and to make sure the students understands the material before moving on.

One resource that Dr. Strange shared with us, called Asking Questions to Improve Learning explored the differences with how a question should be approached in a classroom. Throughout this article it was discussing how to ask questions, how to respond, and then gave examples of different types of questions to ask. At first, I thought this was silly having an article explain how an educator should ask questions, but as I continued reading. I thought just how right all these points are, such as: avoid asking "leading questions", have a follow-up question along with a "yes or no" question, and do not ask more than one question in a discussion. Some reasons behind the do's and don't's were simple, like: students are unsure of which question to answer when asked multiple questions at once and a "leading" question pretty much has the answer within the question. As the article continues with "responding effectively", points were brought up that should be clear, but may sometimes be pushed aside. One point was very true, do not interrupt students' answers. I know it drives me insane when I have the answer, but it is taking me awhile to search for the right words. Seeing that it is taking me a few seconds, they stop me. Then give me the answer, because they do not feel I know it. As an educator we should become more patient allowing the student to search for the right words to answer the question.

Going back to the main question, "What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?" After reading all these points for improving the classroom discussion, I feel I will use these tips and treats to become a more effective teacher in my future classroom.