Remembering to use "open-ended" questions are best....I try to stay away from yes/no type questions unless they are relevant...sometimes these are easier questions to answer and may be appropriate for those "quieter" students.
Hi Cynthia, Thanks for your post to the forum. That's also a great technique to give you a baseline as to what the students know about the topics. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
Hi Ron, Thanks for your post to the forum. Yes, helping students to see the relevance of the concepts we are teaching almost always gets the discussions going! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
Hi Daniel, Thanks for your post to the forum. I like your idea of putting questions on the board and adding parts of answers as you proceed. It shows the students how they processed to the final answers. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
Hi Ethel, Thanks for sharing excellent examples of effective questioning!
Have a great holiday! Susan
Susan Polick
As a culinary teacher, I'll start by talking about a method and food we're working on then ask students what they know about the Method and the food we're working to get them excited and thinking about everything involved.
Techniques in which I have used are to ask students to find a real world link to class content. The elements can be something thats from there own experiences or something in which they have read or seen. This stratgy really gets the class going, becuase everyone normally would have some kind of link to the class topic.
I normally start with an open-ending question and try to get as many answers as possible. Usually list them on the board and then start reorganizing and completing some of them to get to the correct answer to the question. That tends to increase the level of participation on the class.
I use all of the following techniques:
Clarity: Can you tell us more about that?
Accuracy: How can we be sure that is correct?
Precision: Could you be more specific?
Relevance: What does that have to do with this issue?
Depth: What else do you think we should consider?
Breadth: Are there any other ways to look at this?
Logic: What evidence supports what you say?
Significance: Why is this important?
Hi Diana, Thanks for your post to the forum. Yes, open -ended questions do get much more involvement! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
I will ask an open ended question, and that helps to get the ball rolling, then I will encourage answers to other students questions from their peers.
Hi Jon, Thanks for your post to the forum. Yes, students often feel more comfortable working in a group. The anxiety of answering questions as an individual can be very daunting. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
I found that open ended questions work well.
I have found that having students take on questions as a group builds teamwork and more participation. This then gets them more involved in answering questions individually.
Hi Elidon, Love the idea of getting a conversation going in our classrooms. Often students are just afraid of being "wrong" and so having the opportunity to just "discuss" will definitely get more participation!
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
At first you need to ask opinionated questions where students can engage more together as a class. This is a good idea to get your other students that do not like to talk a lot involved in a conversion where there is no right or wrong question. And by doing this the students would tend to relax more and answer other questions where they could be wrong or right.
Hi Tamara, Thanks for your post to the forum. Yes, we need to be really engaging and dynamic to compete with blackberries and laptops! Can you share the link to the clip of the CEO's remark re: the oil spill? Thanks!!
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
I really appreciate your post, as I've used this technique in Speech courses and it helps students see the importance of learning to speak well in all kinds of public situations. One example of this was showing them how sematic mistakes can affect an audience's perception of your sincerity. I did this by using a clip of British Petroleum's CEO answer questions from the press following a meeting with Pres. Obama regarding the oil spill down south. Although the speaker did a good job in many ways with his public responses, he slipped when he called the small business owners affected by the oil spill "little" or "small" people.
Student discussion was very engaged following this.
I still struggle to engage students in questioning when they are dazzled by their laptops, but am slowly figuring out ways to provide clear instruction that moves them away from devices to being involved in class. In these instances, questions directed in a friendly way at individual students and then building on their response with others has worked . We need the laptops for much of their work, so turning them off isn't always the best option, but I know I need to keep working on this area of my classroom management and questioning styles.
Hi Crystal, Thanks for your post to the forum. Absolutely - students love to relate what they are learning to what they have experienced! It makes classroom discussions so much richer as well! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
I think that using a personal approach works great. If you can relate the question to something of value to them, they will not only remember it, but they can bring there own experience to the table. They also enjoy talking about things that are of value to them
