She writes:
"At one time or another, most of us have been disappointed by the
caliber of the questions students ask in class, online, or in the office. Many
of them are such mundane questions: Will material from the book be on the exam? How long should the paper be? Can we use Google to find references? Would you repeat what you just said? I didn’t get it all down in
my notes. Rarely do
they ask thoughtful questions that probe the content and stir the interest of
the teacher and other students.
So, how do we get them to ask better questions? What if we start
by asking them the kinds of questions we hope they will ask us? Here are some
suggestions that might help us model what good questions are and demonstrate
how instrumental they can be in promoting thinking, understanding, and
learning.
Prepare questions
Too often we ask questions as they come to
us. Allen and Tanner write in an excellent article on questioning, Although many teachers carefully plan test questions used as
final assessments, ... much less time is invested in oral questions that are
interwoven in our teaching. (p. 63) How
many questions of the kind that generate discussion and lead to other questions
come to us as we are teaching? Would more of those thought-provoking questions
come to us if we thought about questions as we prepare and contemplate the
content for class?
Play with the questions
Questions promote
thinking before they are answered. It is in the interstices between the
question and the answer that minds turn. In that time before answers, questions
can be emphasized by having them on a PowerPoint or on the board and by
encouraging students to write the question in their notes. Maybe it’s a
question that opens class and doesn’t get answered until the end of class.
Maybe it’s a question that gets asked repeatedly across several class sessions
with any number of possible answers entertained before a good or right answer is
designated.
Preserve good questions
If a question does
generate interest, thoughtful responses, and good discussion, that’s a question
to keep in some more permanent way than simply trying to remember it. Good
questions can be preserved along with the course materials for that day.
Finding them there next semester enables us a revisit and possibly improve
them. Do we need to be reminded that probing questions about the content, not
only encourage students to think, they are good grist for the mill of our own
thinking?
Ask questions that you don’t know the answer to
Students tend to think
that teachers have all the answers. Could that be because we answer all their
questions? Marshall makes a point worth remembering. Typically we ask students
questions that we already know the answer to and if any of you are like me,
while the student is answering, I’m quietly thinking how much better my answer
is and how I will quickly deal with the students answer so I can then give my
answer. Asking a question you don’t know the answer to lets students know that
you still have things to learn. Asking students those questions and then thoughtfully
attending to their answers also indicates that you just might be able to learn
something from a student. Could this be a way to motivate them to ask better
questions?
Ask questions you can’t answer
These questions are
different from those you don’t know the answer to. It’s possible to find
answers to those questions. These are the questions currently being confronted
within the field or area of study that haven’t yet been answered. As of this
moment, the answers are unknown. A question that can’t be answered is
inherently more interesting than one that can be answered. Are there theories
or research findings that suggest answers? Are some of those more likely than
others? Could the answer be something totally unexpected? What if a student
thinks she might have an idea about a possible answer?
Don’t ask open-ended questions when you know the answer you’re looking for
Sometimes students offer
answers but they aren’t the ones the teacher wanted to hear. If you aren’t
getting the answer you want, don’t play the “try to guess the answer I have in
mind” game. It reinforces the idea that the question has one answer that the
teacher thinks is the right or best answer. If the teacher has the answer,
students are quick to conclude it’s the definitive right answer, and that makes
it an answer that they won’t spend any time thinking about.
We ask questions to get students interested, to help them
understand, and to see if they do. We’d like for our questions to promote
lively discussions during which thoughtful perspectives are exchanged,
different views presented and new ideas are born. To accomplish that goal we
need to plan and use question in more purposeful ways. If questions start
playing a more prominent role in our teaching, the reward may be students
asking questions we’d find interesting to answer and they’d find more
interesting to discuss.
Shouldn’t an article on questioning end with one? It should, and
Allen and Tanner have a great one: What would
you predict would happen in your classroom if you changed the kinds of
questions that you ask? (p. 63)
References
Allen, D. and Tanner, K. (2002). Approaches to cell biology
teaching: Questions about questions. Cell Biology Education, 1, 63-67.
Marshall, G. (2006). From Shakespeare on the page to Shakespeare
on the stage: What I learned about teaching in acting class. Pedagogy, 6 (2), 309-325.
Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 27.3 (2013):
5. © Magna Publications. All Rights Reserved."
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