Day 6--Questions about Questioning

At first thought, it would seem that asking effective questions might be among the easiest parts of our job.  After all, we have been asking questions since we could talk: "But why?" "Why not?" "How come"  What today's reading and the group discussion highlighted for me is the fact that there is a lot more to asking effective questions than the who, what, where, when, why, and how than I previously thought.

First, asking effective questions needs to be thought of as a skill like any other.  The pitfall with learning this particular skill, I feel, is the ease with which we can easily fall back into our old way of thinking and asking questions.  If asking effective questions is something that we are going to endeavour to do, it is going to have to be something we are cognisant and mindful of.

One of the most fruitful parts of our small group discussion was around the use of rhetorical questions.  With a question like the one from the article where the author asks, "doesn't a square have four sides?", it is easy to see that this question does not actually require a response.  The question did, however, lead us to a discussion on the use of sarcasm in the class.  More importantly, though, what I took away from our talk is the idea that questions that we might have can be reframed in such a way that the answer shows more thinking on the student's part.  For example, the question about the square having 4 sides might have been used as a question to guide the student to a calculation mistake they might have made.  Changing the question to ask the student to tell you what he knows about a square not only achieves the same goal of getting the student to check his work, but it also gets him thinking about the properties he knows about a square and which of those properties is necessary to answer the question.

Another thing to consider is not only the questions we are asking, but when.  I know from observation and my own practice that as teachers we are often eager to jump into a conversation with students and ask them to talk about or explain what they are doing in that moment.  The article suggests that although it is important to ask good questions, they are not a replacement for thoughtful listening.  I feel that if we are just patient and listen to the conversations that are going on, our questions may be answered without having to interrupt the learning process.

Finally, I think that one thing I have to be mindful of for myself is to take myself out of it and, as Ve says, "don't get my feelings hurt."  I think that as teachers we have the best interest of our students at heart and so we come very invested in the things and ways we teach.  I need to learn to let that go and understand that if I ask a question that does not work, I will just learn from that for next time.