Blog Assignment #4

Asking Questions: What questions do we ask? How do we ask?

After reading this week's assignment for my fourth blog post for EDM310 which is on questions, the topic immediately captured my attention! While pondering the thoughts of what questions do educators ask and how do we ask them, it instantly brought back memories of my own elementary years. I began to think about my third grade teacher Mrs. Whalen and how she made sure to ask us effective questions and the many tactics she used to ensure that we understood what she was teaching. Then, my mind drifted to a not so effective method used by another teacher, who shall remain nameless. From this I concluded that not only is it vital that educators ask questions throughout the day, but it is extremely important to make sure that our students comprehend what we are asking and that each student can effectively respond to our questions.

Out of the 7 resources provided by Dr. Strange this week in our instruction manual for EDM310 blog posts, my favorites by far were The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom and Asking Questions to Improve Learning. Another source that I personally found to be effective is the video Questions in the Classroom by Annie Alpers.

The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom

"Most of us have been exposed to the questioning strategies researched by Mary Budd Rowe. She proposed that teachers simply ask a question, such as "What do you call it when an insect kills itself?" pause for at least three seconds, and then say a student's name: "Sally." By doing this, all the students will automatically be thinking about an answer and only after another child's name is said will they sigh in relief because they were not chosen."

I agree fully with this idea proposed in the article. Before viewing this article, when I thought of my elementary teacher's questioning tactics, this is what stood out in my mind. Of course, there were times when the selection for questions were not random. However, the random selection is something that I think every student can say that they remember. For some students, it was the memory when he or she had their tiny fingers crossed and the tiny voice inside their head was screaming,"PICK ME. PICK ME!" Then for some students, there may be not so fond memories of hoping to be a chameleon that was able to change to the color of the wall in order to not get chosen. However, no matter which memory comes to mind, I am positive that most students will agree that they are familiar with this style of questioning. I feel that this method has been very effective in making sure that students knew key concepts in the past, and it is still very relevant for learning in the future.

Asking Questions to Improve Learning

This resource provided many valuable contributions to my thoughts on questions in the classroom. I love the strategies for asking questions that it provided, as well as the tips towards improving and producing effective student responses. A few of the points that I took note of were the concepts of avoiding leading questions, asking a mix of questions, waiting for students to think and formulate thoughts, and asking students to clarify vague comments. I feel that all of the concepts listed in the article are important, but to me those four are extremely important when it comes to comprehension for students.

Questions in the Classroom

"Consequently, students come to believe that their role is only to listen, rather than to become active participants in learning."- Kenneth Chuska

In addition to the resources listed by Dr. Strange, I did some browsing of my own on the topic of questions being asked in the classroom and I stumbled across this Youtube video. I decided to watch the video in its entirety, and it provided some valid points! One of my favorite messages that I received from the video was the quote by Kenneth Chuska and a more condensed version of the QFT method for questions.