Uzbekistan Republic Navoi State Pedagogical University Faculty of Foreign Languages Course work Subject : Questioning and answering period in the classroom

The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom

Posing a question to the class, allowing for think time, and then calling on a student is one simple strategy for engaging students in better academic discourse. Have you ever thought about how silly we teachers can be? When we get in front of students, we present ourselves to be the ones with all the answers, and then after we talk to the students, we start asking questions as if we don't know anything we just talked about. No wonder students get confused! On a more serious note, as teachers, we need to come to grips with the fact that we really do not know everything, and there is no reason to assume that the students know nothing. But perhaps the most important question to ask is, "What does a teacher asking questions of a class expect the class to learn from the questioning process?"

There are a number of things to consider in this scenario. Some teachers might answer that the reason to ask questions is to check for understanding, which benefits the teacher more than the student. Ostensibly, after we have taught a principle or concept, we could ask, "Does everybody understand?" Even though we all realize that students not answering -- or even answering in the affirmative -- may not really understand, we still ask it. Are we aware of how many times we ask this useless question during a day of teaching?
What we really end up telling the students when we ask this sort of question is, "Ok, here is your last chance. If you don't ask any questions, then you understand completely, and I am free to go on to the next subject. Because I asked this fair question, and gave you a fair chance to answer, I am absolved from any lack of understanding on your part."
The fallacy with this thinking is that sometimes the students do not understand that they do not understand, and if they do not know what they do not know, there is no way that they can ask a question about it. The other element about this question is that it is a yes-or-no question, and we all know it's all too easy to guess what answer the teacher wants to hear, and does not push the students into the higher-order-thinking stratosphere. How do we then go about appropriately checking for understanding? We ask specific questions! Great, you may be saying, but how do we do that? Typically, these are the questions that are thrown out to the class as if they were tantalizing treats to be snatched up by all of the eager students. The reality is far different. If we look at the dynamics of any classroom, it doesn't take more than a week for students to figure out who is smart, who is not, and who doesn't care. What is worse, studies show that after fourth grade, students know how they are perceived and play their roles accordingly. So, here comes one of those hook-laden questions bobbing about the classroom: "Class, if you could stretch string from here to the moon, how many balls of string would it take?"
The students who know they are not smart are not going to take the bait, and neither will the students who do not care. This leaves the smart kids as the only ones interested in answering, and almost before the question is finished, they have their hands up with an answer, right or wrong. The other two groups of kids are perfectly fine with this routine. Most likely, they will complacently say to themselves, "Let them answer the questions so I don't have to."
A teacher may defend this practice because the motivated student who answers will help the whole class to learn the answer. That might be true if the whole class were listening, but, when the teacher starts pacing the room and stops to ask a question, if the students know that the question will be open to the entire class, then most likely two-thirds of the class will not even pay it any attention and continue doodling or daydreaming.
I spent the day as a first grader, a third grader, a fifth grader, a sixth grader, and a ninth grader. I followed these students to all their classes. One astounding thing that I discovered is that some students went through a whole day -- maybe even weeks and months -- and never answered a single verbal question!
Once again, I ask, do we realize how many general questions we throw to the air in the course of a class period? We would be astounded at the results if we simply assigned a student to tally how many of these questions we actually ask each class period. Old habits are hard to break, but the students would love to help you break this one.
Let's say we notice this problem and decide something has to change. "Jeffry, What do John the Baptist and Kermit the Frog have in common?" Several hands slowly recede and all eyes are on Jeffry. Well, some eyes are on Jeffry. The rest of the students just breathed sighs of relief that their names were not called. The question asked is not their problem, and neither is the answer.
Some teachers may say that while Jeffry is thinking of the answer, the rest of the students are, too. Wouldn't that be nice? Once again, maybe one-third of the students are thinking about an answer, but the rest are just glad it wasn't them.
So, how do teachers ask a question the right way?
Most of us have been exposed to the questioning strategies researched by Mary Budd Rowe. She proposed that teachers simply ask a question, such as "What do you call it when an insect kills itself?" pause for at least three seconds, and then say a student's name: "Sally." By doing this, all the students will automatically be thinking about an answer and only after another child's name is said will they sigh in relief because they were not chosen.
Creative teachers accompany this technique with a system to make sure that every child gets to answer questions in a random fashion. If it is not random, then once they answer a question, they think they have answered their one question and are done for the day.

As instructors, we want students to think with us as we lecture or guide a discussion, but how do we ask questions that stimulate this kind of intellectual engagement? We can best promote critical thinking by asking open questions that cannot simply be answered “yes” or “no” or with a single “right” answer. Our questions can invite students to analyze, synthesize or evaluate course material. “Why?” and “How?” can be more profitable for discussion than “What?”

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  Ask your students to clarify their comments or answers. You might do this even when the comment is clear to you. This can be helpful for other students in the class. “Are you saying that…?” “Could you give me an example?”
  
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  Ask questions that probe your students’ assumptions. They may be unaware of their assumptions until asked to articulate them. “What are you assuming here?” “What could we assume instead?” “Is this always the case?” “Why do you think the assumption holds here?”
  
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  Ask questions that probe reasons, evidence, and causes. Lead students to support their arguments. “What are your reasons for saying that?” “What other information do we need to know?” “Is there good evidence for believing that?” “What do you think the cause is?”
  
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  Ask questions that probe implications and consequences. “When you say___, are you implying that____?” “If you do that, what will happen?” “How is that connected to the question?” “How does that bear on ____?” “How does that follow?”
  
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  Ask questions that help students recognize and clarify their own thought processes. “Could you explain further where you’re having difficulties?” “Could you express that point in another way?” “Could you be more specific?” “Have you thought of…?” “What factors make this a difficult problem?” “What would this look like from the point of view of ___?”
  
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  Ask questions that require students to defend their positions. Play “devil’s advocate,” even with students you agree with or who articulate their points most cogently. All students can benefit from this intellectual exercise.
  
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  Ask a question with multiple possible answers. Write all options on the board without commenting on the list being produced. Then have the class discuss the options, explaining why some answers are better than others.
  

When you ask open questions, be sure to allow students time to respond (between 10 and 30 seconds). This time feels longer than it is; try not to rush in too soon to rephrase the question or answer it yourself. If the silence is protracted, however, you might try: rephrasing the question, having a student rephrase it for you, giving students a few minutes to write about the question 
or discuss it with a peer.
One of the best ways you can help your students understand a concept is by teaching how to voice their questions as they learn. This not only gives you an opportunity to address areas your students don’t yet understand, it also promotes rich opportunities for classroom discussion.
Read on to learn how questions help students learn more fully from you and each other. Then, discover seven quick tips that will help you both encourage and teach students to ask questions in class.
When students ask questions, they get to hop in the driver’s seat of their education and steer their learning. No longer are they waiting for you to — hopefully — address the item that’s confounding them. Instead, they’re guiding you to make the lesson more impactful.
Students who ask questions are likewise engaging in collaborative learning and monitoring their own understanding. What’s more: building a learning environment where it’s “cool” to ask questions is a way to help prepare your students for life outside the classroom.
But how do you create a classroom environment where students feel their questions are accepted and no time is a bad time to ask a question?

Encouraging questions in the classroom needs to go beyond the dreaded ‘hands up’ approach if you want your students to feel safe asking them! After all, one of the chief reasons kids don’t ask questions comes down to a fear of seeming “uncool” or “not as smart” as their peers.

Teaching kids to ask questions is a two-fold process. On the one hand, you want to encourage questions as the lesson goes on. Hold on now … we’re not suggesting that you have students calling out and interrupting the flow of your teaching! No one is going to learn when you can’t get a full sentence out!
But building a space where questions are encouraged means it’s crucial to build in time for collaborative engagement. Not only does this help your students, but it will help you too as you can see gaps in learning!
Second, encouraging students to ask questions is about giving them tools to ask for help when they need it. This comes later — as they’re trying to implement the new concepts. In a traditional classroom, the teacher is the center of attention, the owner of knowledge and information. Teachers often ask questions of their students to gauge comprehension, but it's a passive model that relies on students to absorb information they need to reproduce on tests. That's the premise of the Right Question Institute and a new book by its co-directors Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana. The book, Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions, documents a step-by-step process to help students formulate and prioritize questions about nearly everything. Coming up with the right question involves vigorously thinking through the problem, investigating it from various angles, turning closed questions into open-ended ones and prioritizing which are the most important questions to get at the heart of the matter.