The Department of Agricultural Education |
DEVELOPING AND USING QUESTIONS IN TEACHING I. Purposes of questions: II. Kinds of questions: III. Requires on part of teachers: 1. Clear and rapid thinking (a slow, clear
thinker may prepare written question or directions but may get poor results in
recitation) IV. Requisites of a good question:
V. Kinds of response to questions: 1. Facts
(memory)
7. Involves appreciation VI. Common errors in questioning: 1. Repeating student's answer VII. Using questions in the discussion: 1. What is the value of questions which cannot be
answered immediately? ON QUESTIONS AND QUESTIONING One measure of the success of the superior is the manner in which questions are used in the conduct of individual and group instruction. The teacher can improve questioning. A prerequisite is an understanding of the function of questions. A. Educational Functions of Oral Questions Suring Class Discussion 1. Stimulate learning by questioning
2. Direct learning by questions to:
3. Evaluation of learning by questions to:
APPROVED QUESTIONING TECHNIQUES 1. Ask question; then call on student TECHNIQUES OF THE MASTER ASKING QUESTIONS Prior to the development of probing and higher
order questioning techniques comes the skill of asking questions, period. Too
often THE USE OF HIGHER ORDER QUESTIONS Higher order questions are defined as questions which cannot be answered from memory or simple sensory description. They call for finding a rule or principles rather than defining one. The critical requirements for a "good" classroom question is that it prompts students to use ideas rather than just remember them. Although Some teachers intuitively ask questions of higher quality, far too many over-emphasize those that require only the simplest cognitive activity on the part of the students. Procedures have been designed to sensitize beginning teachers to the effects of questioning on their students and which provide practice in forming and using higher order questions. THE USE OF PROBING QUESTIONS Probing requires that teachers ask questions that require pupils to go beyond superficial "first-answer" questions. This can be done in five ways: I) asking pupils for more information and/or more meaning; 2) requiring the pupil to rationally justify his/her response; 3) refocusing the pupil's or class's attention on a related issue; 4) promoting the pupil or giving pupil hints; and 5) bringing other students into the discussion by getting them to respond to the first student's answer. TEACHER SILENCE AND NON-VERBAL CUES Many teachers are frightened by silence or pauses
in classroom discussion. They usually hasten to fill silence gaps by talking.
What many teachers do not realize is that teacher silence is a powerful tool in
the classroom. Teacher pausing can be used after: Do’s and Don’ts of Questioning Students' response habits are determined much by the teacher's questioning techniques. This checklist will help the teacher to identify weaknesses in performance.Check I. Do evaluate the teaching continuously as the lesson unfolds. Ask
questions to test comprehension, understanding, grasp of idea or relationship. Philosophy of Question "Questioning is sometimes called a probe with which the teacher examines the pupil's mind as a surgeon examines a wound; and sometimes a plummet with which the teacher sounds the depths of the mind as a sailor measures the sea with his lead. It is indeed, both a probe and a plummet, but it is far more -it is a magician's wand with which new knowledge is summoned into life. Skillful questions cause the pupil to define his facts; to clarify his ideas; to put facts and ideas together in new relations; to compare; to judge; and to draw inferences -mental operations which develop our higher knowledge. Socrates, borrowing the name from his mother's trade, called his method maieutic, and the instrument with which he assisted his pupils to give birth to the children of their minds was questioning. We must therefore, pay more than passing attention to this art." --Hinsdale "As with the world, so with the child, his education begins as soon as he begins to ask questions. The object of the event that excites no questions will provoke no thought. An explanation may be so given as to raise new questions as soon as the mind is sufficiently awake. The falling apple had the question of gravitation in it for the mind of Newton; and the boiling tea kettle propounded to Watt the problem of a steam engine. --The explanation that settles everything and ends all questions usually ends all thinking also. --The alert and scientific mind is one that never ceases to ask questions and seek answers. The scientific spirit is the spirit of tireless inquiry and research." --Gregory "A half dozen thoroughly good questions often make a recitation a most stimulating exercise in thinking, which the absence of this preparation on the part of the teacher not infrequently results in the ordinary, listless class period, which may actually be harmful from the standpoint of the child's intellectual growth --There is n<? one thing that a teacher can do which will bring a greater reward in increased teacher power than systematically to prepare questions for one or more recitations each day." --Strayer "One important part of instruction in any course should accordingly be to get students to raise questions about the subject under discussion It would be one excellent practice to require the class to formulate questions about each lesson."-- Judd |
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