Blog Post #4

My question for my blog this week is, "Asking questions: What questions do we ask? How do we ask?"

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher? I believe we, as future educators, need to plan and think about the questions we want to ask. I agree with Dr. Maryellen Weimer, that good questions make the students think and that they encourage participation. That is the number one reason teachers need to think about the questions they want to ask their students. Dr. Weimer suggest three actions that can help us, future educators, improve our questioning.

1st Action:Prepare Questions

Most educators spend most of their time preparing the content their going to teach, getting organized, and/or finding examples. The one thing that educators may not be doing is preparing the questions they need to ask and how they need to ask them. Also, teachers could recognize when their students don't understand the question they are asking. Not many students will answer the question asked. Preparing questions, either the night before or even the morning of classes, can drastically make a difference in participation. Dr. Weimer suggest that when asking a question, it should be clear all the way around. I agree with her. If you make a question clearer, the students will understand what you are asking and possibly answer it correctly.

2nd Action:Play with Questions

Playing with questions can make students think about it more in depth. Majority of the time, once a question is answered and the teacher states that it is correct, some students may stop thinking about the question asked; others may not. Dr. Weimer states, "Playing with the question means leaving it unanswered for a while and using some strategies that encourage students to think about it." It encourages students to think 'outside the box'. Not just the normal, usual answer. She also suggests that the teacher could accept many possible answers and then discuss how they may or may not be correct. I think this is a great way to encourage students to ponder on the various answers there could be.

3rd Action:Preserve Good Questions

A great way to preserve good questions is to jot down some answers that are given by students. Doing that will bring on more questions that the teacher could ask. Another way to ask some questions would be to use questions that a student in a previous class had asked that pertained to the topic. Some questions asked by students should be valued. They may give you an answer that you wouldn't have thought could be correct. Asking good questions could help students realize the importance of questions. Also, questions are more effective when more thought is put into them. I agree with Dr. Weimer when she mentions that, "the best questions of all are the ones that we, educators, cannot answer."