Blog Post #6

What do we need to know about questions to be an effective teacher?

Until assigned this question I had never put any thought into what I needed to know as a teacher about asking a  question. I always felt the question was, "what does the student need to know about the question?". After doing my research about questions I was amazed at the things that I needed to know to be an effective teacher. This research not only increased my knowledge but also will help me improve my project based learning in the classroom. 

So to answer the question, "What do we need to know about questions to be an effective teacher?", I started with Asking Questions to Improve Learning. This website pointed out a few key general strategies for asking questions. As teachers, when asking questions keep the course goals in mind. Ask questions that pertain to the subject being taught and try not to get to off subject. This should help students with their critical thinking and communicate the facts learned. Avoid asking your students leading questions and if there is a "yes or no" question then follow the question up with another question. When leading classroom discussion try and not ask more then one question at a time. Sometimes asking more then one question can cause confusion to students about what question to answer. Ask questions through out your lecture and the class is more likely to be  more involved and attentive. This can also help the teacher measure the class's progress and see where the students are. Use different types of questions such as Open ended, closed, and managerial questions. 

After reading Asking Questions to Improve Learning I still felt that there was more to learn about asking questions so I used Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom as my next resource. According to this Maryelle Weimer, a teaching professor, preparing questions is just as important as preparing the content. Planning out questions can make questions more clear and make the classroom discussion time run more smoothly. Play with questions and this will give the students more time to think on the question. An example of playing with questions would be collecting several answers. Last, make sure you preserve good questions. You can do this by saving student's questions from a previous class. These techniques help students think and learn and that is the importance of asking questions.

So to fully answer the question, "What do we need to know about questions to be an effective teacher?", we need to know the importance of questions. Teachers need to do the research on ways to improve asking questions to their classroom. Teachers need an understanding of where the students are within the class. Last teachers need to challenge their students to think out side the box and be critical thinkers.