Questioning

(Now that summer is here, it is time for me to discuss different educational topics alphabetically. Please join in the conversation and tell me what you think!)

Questioning is an essential part of the learning process. Asking the right questions is also a great way to model for students how to ask questions. Students have to learn how to ask questions because many times they don’t know what they need or how to ask for it. Questioning helps students to:

• Develop critical thinking skills. When students are asked to answer questions, they are forced to think critically about the material. They must process the information, identify the key concepts, and formulate a response. This helps them to develop their critical thinking skills, which are essential for success in school and in life.
• Engage with the material. Questions can help to engage students with the material and keep them interested. When students are actively thinking about the material, they are more likely to remember it.
• Identify gaps in knowledge. Questions can help teachers to identify gaps in students' knowledge. This allows teachers to provide targeted instruction and ensure that all students are on the same page.
• Promote discussion and collaboration. When students are asked questions, they have the opportunity to discuss their answers with their classmates. This can help to promote discussion and collaboration, which are essential skills for learning.
• Assess student understanding. Questions can be used to assess student understanding of the material. This allows teachers to track student progress and make necessary adjustments to their instruction.

There are many different types of questions that can be asked in the classroom. Some common types of questions include:

• Fact-based questions: These questions require students to recall factual information.
• Conceptual questions: These questions require students to understand and apply concepts.
• Problem-solving questions: These questions require students to use their knowledge to solve problems.
• Critical thinking questions: These questions require students to think critically about the material and form their own opinions.

The type of question that is asked will depend on the learning objective. For example, if the learning objective is for students to recall factual information, then fact-based questions would be appropriate. If the learning objective is for students to understand and apply concepts, then conceptual questions would be appropriate.

Effective questioning is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. However, it is a skill that is essential for effective teaching. By asking thoughtful questions, teachers can help students to develop critical thinking skills, engage with the material, identify gaps in knowledge, promote discussion and collaboration, and assess student understanding.

How do you teaching questioning in the classroom? Please share.

Offer Help

In “How can I help?” from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin states,

“It’s a simple question that can open doors.”

Sometimes I offer help when it isn’t needed, or wanted, or it isn’t the help the other person wants.

Instead of asking “Can I help?” I should be asking “How can I help?”

Sometimes I think I know the question when it isn’t really the question the other person has.

Asking how I can help, allows the other person to get the help they really need and not the service I think they need.

Now if the other person says they need help but they don’t know what help they need, I can ask more questions to clarify their needs.

Immediately offering help without knowing exactly what they need can cause frustration or discouragement. It may make the other person give up before they actually have begun.

This is a great skill to teach students. Students need to know how to offer help to others in a way that doesn’t offend or patronize the other person. In the same way, the person needing help needs to learn how to accept the help they need. Learning how to ask may help them accept help from others more easily. If they get the help they need, it will help them be more successful in the classroom and in life.

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Wait Five Beats

In Five beats from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin shares,

“Wait for five beats. Kneejerk is not an admirable trait.”

This is really hard for my students because I believe that when you are young, you want to act fast and act now. Being patient is not easy to do.

I also think that teachers tend to encourage this kneejerk behavior because we ask for an answer and if the student doesn’t answer quickly, we assume that they don’t know the answer. Instead, students process the question at different speeds and it may take some longer to understand the question than others.

I remember as a student that I had a fear that I would be chosen to answer that the fear crowded out the knowledge. If I knew that answer, the panic took precedence over the answer and I was unable to answer the question.

When I was learning to wait before expecting an answer, it felt like the wait time was so long! But the more I practiced it, the easier it was to do.

First I would explain to the class that I would ask a question to the entire class and then wait for everyone to have time to process the question. I didn’t want anyone to raise their hand until I asked for them to do so or I might ask someone specific. This would give everyone time to process the question.

I would ask students to give me a thumbs up if they were ready to answer the question and then wait a little longer for the others if needed. Then I would tell students if they were unsure, to put their thumb out to the side and if they didn’t know the answer to put their thumbs down. This helped many to save face and let me know who I might need to help individually.

When I started to do this, students were more engaged and participated in the question and answer session. Students lost that panicked look of having to have an answer immediately. There was more thoughtful pondering when I asked a question. It also kept students from guessing at answers and throwing out wrong answers. These wrong answers could be confusing to those still trying to process the question.

Do you give wait time before asking questions? Please share your experience.

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Asking the Right Questions

Asking the Right Questions in All the answers from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin states,

“The ability to figure out what hasn’t been figured out and see what hasn’t been seen is a significant advantage.”

We don’t seem to be teaching our students to ask questions. Many times in school, I see teachers and administrators wanting students to follow directions and do the work without asking questions. Of course, you have simple questions about the procedures or the expectations but where are the deeper questions? Where are the questions about why they are doing it? Where are the questions about how they could do it better or faster or more meaningful?

When I look at all the inventions that have been created, I wonder about how they came about. Surely, someone had to be asking the right questions. When we moved from outhouses to indoor plumbing, someone had to ask questions about transporting water inside a building and about waste removal, and many other things that I can’t imagine. When refrigerators were invented, someone had to ask questions about how to make them work. These things could not have happened if someone hadn’t asked the right questions.

Yet, how do we teach students to ask the right questions? One way is to model this for them. When I see something, I ask my questions out loud. I let them see how I look for the answers. I encourage my students into helping me ask other questions and sometimes they come up with things I hadn’t thought of before. This helps them get beyond the simple questions into more critical thinking. I want students to feel comfortable with asking the questions without worrying about feeling silly or afraid of being ridiculed. There are no questions considered bad or silly. As students get more comfortable with asking questions, the easier it will be for them to think of more complex questions rather than worrying about what others are thinking. Questioning broadens their horizons because it helps them look beyond their immediate surroundings.

How do you teach students to ask the right questions? Please share.

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Question

(During the summer months, I like to take the A-Z Challenge and come up with words alphabetically and see how they apply to education. I think it’s a great exercise for teachers and students to give this a try.)

We spend a lot of time training our young students to follow directions and do what they are told.

Then we get to a point where we want them to ask questions. Yet, many teachers get irritated when they don’t like the questions that are asked. Some feel the questions indicate that the student wasn’t paying attention or was distracted by something else.

In my class, no question is silly or ignored. If the student didn’t hear something because they were not paying attention, then I will address that behavior and not ignore the question. When they need to ask the question, I know that at that point, they are paying attention.

Sometimes they are paying attention but have not been able to process what they have heard and will need the directions repeated or given in a different way. Giving information a different way may help clarify any confusion. I may even let another student explain it in their own words. This helps me see if the information was understood by others.

I also need to teach my students how to question. This skill was a challenge for me. When I was a student, I didn’t know what questions I needed to ask. By modeling the questioning technique, I can show my students how to use critical thinking in order to ask the appropriate questions.

Once students learn how to ask questions that clarify information, they will become more engaged in the lesson. They will know how to ask questions that are meaningful to them. By asking questions, they will retain the information better. Students are less distracted when they are formulating questions and seeking answers.

By encouraging other students to help answer the questions also opens up lively discussions and enhancing learning for everyone.

How do you teach students to question? Please share.

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Would You Rather? Answers

Yesterday I gave suggestions for Would You Rather Questions and here are how I would answer them. 

· Win the lottery and take the money in a lump sum or in yearly payments? Lump Sum

· Go around the world on a cruise ship or plane? Cruise because I’d already have a hotel room to sleep every night.

· Eat a vegetable you hate or a meat that you hate? A Vegetable

· Stand in front of a group and give a speech or give your speech on a video? Video

· Have your leg or arm cut off? arm

· Lose your sight or your hearing? hearing

· Lose your sight or your speech? speech

· Live where it is freezing cold all the time or over 100 degrees all the time? Freezing because I could always add clothes on.

· Live in a cave or a treehouse? Cave because it couldn’t rot and fall apart

· Be poor and happy or rich and unhappy? Poor and happy

· Live a long life and never achieve your goals or have a short life but achieved all your goals? Live a long life and work towards my goals

· Work 4 days a week for 10 hours a day or 5 days a week for 8 hours a day? 4 days a week

· Write an 1000 word essay by hand or type a 4000 word essay on the computer? 1000 words

· Weed the garden or wash the car? Weed the garden

How would you answer these questions? Please share.

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Would You Rather? Questions

I love playing this game. When we are hiking and I’m tired and feeling discouraged. It helps keep my mind off of things. My husband also knows when I start this, he knows I’m feeling miserable. He jumps right in and then we might have a lengthy discussion trying to choose the best answer.

I think students would enjoy this game also. It can be used as an icebreaker or a class discussion if it involves dilemmas.

Here are some examples of Would You Rather:

· Win the lottery and take the money in a lump sum or in yearly payments?

· Go around the world on a cruise ship or plane?

· Eat a vegetable you hate or a meat that you hate?

· Stand in front of a group and give a speech or give your speech on a video?

· Have your leg or arm cut off?

· Lose your sight or your hearing?

· Lose your sight or your speech?

· Live where it is freezing cold all the time or over 100 degrees all the time?

· Live in a cave or a treehouse?

· Be poor and happy or rich and unhappy?

· Live a long life and never achieve your goals or have a short life but achieved all your goals?

· Work 4 days a week for 10 hours a day or 5 days a week for 8 hours a day?

· Write an 1000 word essay by hand or type a 4000 word essay on the computer?

· Weed the garden or wash the car?

Come back tomorrow to see how I would answer them.

What other questions would you ask? Please share.

Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash

Asking the Right Questions

In Nothing is one thing from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin talks about getting one-word answers for questions and how this can be annoying and frustrating.

When my nephew was younger, his mom would put him on the phone with me and it was a tough conversation. Any question I asked, he answered with one or two words and never asked a question back. It is really hard to have a conversation like this because it takes both parties participating in order to have a meaningful conversation. This was very frustrating for me because I loved my nephew and I wanted to know more about what was going on in his life.

Then I realized I hadn’t been asking the right questions. I needed to stop asking questions that enabled only one-word answers. I needed to dig deeper. Maybe he saw these shallow questions as false interest in him.

So before the calls, I started to think about how I would ask him questions. Instead of asking how things were going and expecting the answer of “fine,” I asked him to tell me what was the best thing that happened to him this week. Then I would ask him to tell me what was the worst thing that happened to him this week. I would also ask him if money was no object, what would he wish right now. Sometimes this opened up to longer conversations and more questions for clarification. Once I started asking the right questions, I felt like we had a better connection.

This works with my students also. I need to avoid questions that allow for the one-word answer. Instead of asking, “Do you understand me?”, I need to ask, “What did I ask you to do?” Instead of just accepting an answer that can be memorized and repeated, I need to ask them why that is the answer. I might ask them how they got that answer. These kinds of answers require more thinking. It allows me to assess for understanding better.

I realize now that just getting the correct answers isn’t always the best thing. I need to make sure that I’m asking the right questions.

What kinds of questions work best for you and your students? Please share.

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Why All the Questions

In But what is this question for? From Seth Godin's Blog,  Seth Godin states,

“If you are asked a question in a job interview, on stage or even on a date, there’s probably a reason, and the reason might not be because the person asking wants to know your answer.”

Sometimes you may think you are asked a crazy question and even think the person asking it is crazy but usually most people have a reason for asking the question.

I know a friend who was a manager at Cracker Barrel and would interview people at a table in the dining area. After looking over the application, the manager would ask them if they could move to a table in a different area because he forgot that they are doing some cleaning in this particular area. As they walk to the new area, the manager can observe and see how quickly the applicant moves and the body language as they move from one area to another. The manager told me that he can learn a lot just from observing body language and movement. He can see if the person will hustle in the dining room or sluggishly move around. He needed someone who was agile and a mover.

Sometimes you are asked about your hobbies in an interview. An interviewer can learn a lot about the applicant this way. Are the hobbies risky and would they possibly cause the employee to miss work a lot? Do the hobbies require the applicant to be out of town a lot? If the hobby consists of using their hands to build or manipulate things, an employer might see this as an asset for a specific position in the company.

A question about volunteer work might be asked. This would show an interviewer how well you take the initiative and whether you like helping others even if you don’t get paid. It tells about your character also.

You might be asked to fill out a form in front of the interviewer. This will show them how legible your handwriting is, how well you spell, and if you can read.

Remember to think about the questions you are asked and that your answers and body language may reveal more than you think.

What other questions are deeper than face value? Please share.

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Bullet Journaling

In What Questions Do You Ask Yourself Every Day? From  Cool Cat Teacher Blog by coolcatteacher@gmail.com, Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher, asks,

So, your challenge today is to examine the questions you’re asking yourself now. When can you ask yourself those questions for maximum impact?

At the beginning of the year, I make yearly goals and review the at the end of every month.

I started using a bullet journal about a year ago and it has helped me reflect on my day and meet goals that I want to achieve. I also like decorating my bullet journal because it makes me happy.

I set up a monthly page and then weekly pages. I put down daily goals in the morning and reflect on these at the end of the day. At the beginning of the week, I list weekly goals and at the end of the week, I see whether I have met my goals.

Questions that I ask myself are:

1.     What do I want to accomplish this month?

2.     What do I want to accomplish this week?

3.     What do I want to accomplish this day?

4.     What have I accomplished?

5.     What did I not do and why?

6.     What needs to be pushed into the future?

I think reflecting is very important because it helps me be a better person. It helps me be more productive and able to do the things that I want to do. When I reflect on my acoomplishments, it makes me feel proud of myself.

This would be a great for my students to do. It would help them be more productive and help build up their self-concept.

What questions do you ask yourself? In what format do you use to do this? Please share.