Blog Post #6

Questions! How do we question?

Why is it important to know how to ask questions in the classroom? Asking questions encourages engagement, but do all questions engage the learner? In the following blog I will explain how to question your students, why it is important to question your students, and the different types of questions that engage your learners.

As teachers we are always striving for our students to get the most out of every lesson. In order to do that we must engage every student. How do we do that you ask? Asking questions is a great way to start. Teachers use questioning to accomplish many things such as assessing student knowledge, stimulating classroom discussion, helping students clarify their ideas and thought process or leading them to consider new ideas and make use of ideas already learned. (A question to ponder: Why do teachers ask questions?)
In my personal experience not all students want to answer questions openly in class. There are many underlying issues that cause a student to be closed off. Whether it be they were not paying attention or they are just to shy to answer. How do you get all students to be active learners in the classroom. There are different styles of getting your students involved in answering questions. To keep all students involved in the lesson, I have found it effective to ask a question then randomly call a student to answer. In previous classrooms I have used popsicle sticks with student names on them. Ask a question then pull a stick at random and that student is the student that will answer the question. If the student does not fully answer the question then ask probing question to get the full answer and get the student to access knowledge they already have. If the student is still having trouble then get help from another student by pulling another stick. When the students do not know who will get to answer the question that keeps the students more involved in their learning. Take the time to praise answers and acknowledge good points in the answer.

The following list are some questioning strategies that I find useful when preparing your questions for your lessons.  Listed below is the main point of the strategies and the websites used for more in depth information.  
Questioning Styles and Strategies
Asking Questions to Improve Your Learning
Questioning Strategies to Engage all Learners

Questioning strategies

-Keep your course goals in mind
-Refrain from asking questions that discourages students from thinking on their own
-Add additional questions to "yes-or-no" questions
-During class avoid multi-layered questions, save those for exams or paper assignments
-Ask one question at a time during class discussion
-Plan time in your lessons to stop and ask questions
-Use different types of questions throughout your lessons
-Call students at random
-Require all students to correctly answer posed questions




Why  questioning is important

Now that you know how to question the students, why is it important to ask questions? Teachers ask hundreds of questions a day. Questions guide students' thinking and determine how students will process material presented to them. According to Why are questions important?, questions are the single, most influential teaching activity. The right questions capture students attention. Especially when you call on different students to answer. It redirects their attention to the question being asked. They also help students interact with the content being taught. Questions help teachers check for understanding and also helps evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson. The last point is that questioning increases the level of thinking. Questions are the best way to gain a deeper insight. Not all questions are insightful questions though. There are many different types of questions.

Different types of questions
There are many different types of questions. Questions that only require a one word answer, questions that require a paragraph of general knowledge, and questions that require students to dig deep and connect prior knowledge. The main question types are open questions and closed questions. Closed questions are questions that only require a "yes-or-no" answer or a short phrase. These questions do not engage the students and do not require them to really think. Open questions are questions that require the student to explain, define, and gather a higher order of thinking. As well as open and closed question there are more types that elicit different thought processes from the students.
There are five basic types of questions such as factual, convergent, divergent, evaluative, and combinations. Factual questions are soliciting, reasonably, and simple, straight forward answers based on obvious facts or awareness. Convergent are based on personal awareness, material read, presentations, or material already known. Answers to these types of questions are usually within a very finite range of acceptable accuracy.  Divergent questions allow the students to explore different avenues and create many different variations and alternative answers or scenarios. The correctness to these questions may be based on logical projections, may be contextual, intuition, or imagination. Divergent questions require students to analyze. synthesize, or evaluate a knowledge base and then project or predict different outcomes. Evaluative questions usually require sophisticated levels of cognitive and/or emotional judgment. When answering these types of questions students may be combining multiple logical and affective thinking process, or comparative frameworks. The answer is analyzed at multiple levels and from different perspectives before the answer arrives at newly synthesized information or conclusion. The last type is combinations. Combinations are questions that blend any of the previous types mentioned above.