How do we transition between techniques utilizing effective questions?
Let me geek out for a second, in this week's readings I found a strong connection to my Summer Reading, DRiVE by Daniel Pink! It was even referenced in one of the readings.
Are all questions the same?
Not a chance. Effective questions are meaningful and understandable to students, they challenge students, but are not beyond their reach.All questions, open ended versus closed, various levels of thinking or more varieties have a place in the classroom for different purposes.
- Closed-ended questions (yes/no response, or multiple choice) quickly check comprehension.
- Open-ended questions require expanded thinking and processing of information.
- By discussing the questions in groups, students can learn from a variety of perspectives.
What is the coolest teacher “question tip” you want to incorporate?
I often think of questions as a transition piece, simply connecting to chunks of information together. Also, I think of questions as a form of assessment. Both of these are correct, but that doesn't discount other roles questions can play. The first 'Tip" I read hit me upside the head.
Determine your learning objectives and align the questions with the objectives.
Why would asking questions at higher levels of cognition (think Bloom) matter?
First, if you're following my tip above you'll want to ask questions at different levels to align with the learning objectives that you are assessing.
Second, assessing high levels of cognition allow you to understand how deep a student's level of thinking and learning are occurring at. This assessment also can serve as a form of scaffolding, by asking several smaller questions to get to an end result we can scaffold what the student knows and guide them to piecing together information.
What is Student Agency or Student Voice?
Student agency is learning through activities that are relevant to learners, driven by their interests. To put it simply, student agency gives students voice and autonomy in their learning.
Student agency is the one of the core values of inquiry based learning.
Lisa, awesome job connecting this week's readings to you summer reading book! You list some great points about questioning and it's importance/use. My question for you is what are some examples or ways you would incorporate the different types of questions (especially higher order) into your ag classroom?
ReplyDeleteLisa, questioning can be such a powerful tool in the educators toolbag. I remember vividly principals praising my use of questioning to direct students to the answer of questions they had for me, as opposed to just answering the question for them outright.
ReplyDeleteLisa, I appreciate your point about tying questions to the learning objectives! It's not something I had previously thought of but it makes so much sense!
ReplyDeleteGreat points in here. I think your note that a variety of questions is a good approach is so true. We need to ask the basic things and ask those higher level ones to keep thinking and learning moving. Also, varying questions can create a type of "brain break" for students.
ReplyDeleteI am excited to share the questioning techniques from the APL training done at Dover when you are here. They tie into your perspective on the group support component and I think you will enjoy using them.