Blog 6

Asking Questions: What questions do we Ask? How do We Ask? As a teacher, it is important to ask questions that pertain to project based techniques. Why should teachers ask questions you ask? Asking questions provides teachers with feedback. The teacher may ask a question to see if the student has understood the concept that he or she taught in a previous or current lecture or to see who is actually paying attention. Asking questions does not always provide useful feedback because some students are afraid to answer questions in class. Some students may not ask questions because they are scared of the idea of getting the answer wrong and being ridiculed. When asking questions it is important to ask the students if they understand and ask do they need some clarification because many of the questions we ask may not always make sense. As future educators we must also understand every student is different and not all of the students will want to participate in class discussions nor will they want to answer questions. However, as a teacher we do play an important role in helping students gain the courage to answer questions and get involved in the classroom. We should ask questions that will fit the level that students know how to communicate on. According to Ben Johnson, by the time students enter the fourth grade they know how they are perceived and play their roles accordingly. Why is this significant? It all goes back to asking questions and forming a question that the grade level you are teaching will be able to respond to. Find out how to ask appropriate questions at Better Questions Deeper Learning

Two of three Ways to Ask Better Questions In the blog three ways to ask better questions Maryellen Weimer,a teaching professional gave ways to ask better questions in the classroom.

Prepare Questions: Maryellen Weimer said that she never prepared questions to ask her students while in the classroom. Maryellen said she would just ask them. Maryellen would ask questions that students could not understand and when she found blank stares on their face she would reword her questions. It’s obvious that Maryellen did not think about her questions before she posed them or else students would have given her some type of response. What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher? Thoughtful questions require students to think about what is being asked. It challenges them to think outside of the box and come up with a response that may be different from their classmate. When preparing questions it is important to pose questions that relate to the lecture or the assignment. If a question is posed and it does not relate to the lecture students will take advantage and get off topic and who knows how long that will go on. I found the article by Bill Welty interesting because it gives the teacher the opportunity to be creative with questions and examine when, where, and how to ask the question

Preserve Good Questions: Maryellen Weimer says that it is okay to save good questions. Sometimes students offer ideas or questions that the teacher may not have thought of asking. If a student asked me a good question I would write down that question and ponder on it. I would probably do research on it as well. As a future educator, I believe that there is nothing wrong with research even if we have knowledge of that subject. The world is constantly growing and things are constantly changing, which leads to why teachers should preserve questions. Maryellen said that eventually students may start asking better questions themselves, including the ones we can’t answer. What significance does this have? Hopefully students will go research the questions that we cannot answer. Allowing students the opportunity to research what we can't answer will have them eager to learn more and wanting to ask more questions.