open ended questions
The questions that allow students to really get involved are ones that are open ended. This gives the student opportunity to explore without judgment
I also try to use open ended questions in Biomechanics classes. The questions seem to generate application based answers and thought processes.
Open ended questions are used in all my classes because it brings out discussion and students do not have a fear of being wrong!
I have a tendency to ask questions about the parts of the engines and how they work together to get the students to think systematically about how all of it works together. This seems to open discussions of a broader spectrum.
I use quite a bit of open-ended questions in some of my classes. I find that, in teaching a class like College Math or College Algebra, that I have to make a conscious effort to include open-ended questions because the nature of that material is so "step by step" dependent. It's interesting and often fun to see what some of my algebra students will come up with when presented with an open-ended math question. I seem to remember having two very different math instructors when I was in college, one was strictly formal step by step, while the other would oftentimes veer off into what he called "a little room for 'invention,'" and these were our opportunities to experiment with what we'd gathered up to that point. There always seemed to be a few different approaches to getting very close, if not exactly, to the answer.
I use predominantly open ended questions to solicit student responses in all my class discussions. Merely using closed ended questions, that are either "yes" or "no" limits the discussion. I really wnat to hear what students have thought about the subject matter and explore the content in more detail.
