Blog post #4

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher? This is the question we are supposed to answer in this blog. Asking questions to try and get some kind of reaction to what you the teacher is teaching about is always important. Without some kind of sign that the students are actually listing to you teach, teachers are going to often get flustered. We as teachers or soon to be teachers do not need to loose our cool when dealing with students, we need to take a step back and try to remember how we as students hated to answer questions, or be put on the spot. In the first article The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom, states that we as teachers need to understand we do not know everything, and also understand that the students are not completely clueless. Asking the students if they understand what was just discussed is not a way of trying to make a student feel inadequate if they do not understand, the question is asked to make sure there are no misunderstandings about what was just discussed. However if the student is confused about what was discussed how would they be able to word the question in an understandable matter? This can be combated by the teacher asking very focused in questions on what was just discussed instead of the normal does everyone understand question, the less broad a question is the more likely a question will be asked or better yet answered by the students. Other ways to insure the teachers questions being answered would be asking the question, waiting a few seconds and if no student volunteers then call on a student and get them to answer the question for you. This insures that the students are at least given the chance to answer the question on their own free will versus being called out, however if no student offers to answer than calling on a student is also acceptable. Those were just a few ideas that were listed that can improve the question asking and answering.
In the second article Asking Questions to Improve Learning, it states that teachers should refrain from asking two questions at once, because it can confuse the students and the teacher will be less likely to receive an answer because the students will or are unsure of which question to answer. If the teacher can refrain from asking two questions at once then it is more likely the students will respond positively to the teacher.
This article basically states that for a teacher to get an effective response they should stray away from leading questions, meaning that questions that formulate the answer which in turn gets answered but it stops the students from creating their own critical thinking process. The first two articles helped me formulate my own thoughts on asking questions in the classroom and provided me many helpful tips that I can and will use while I am a teacher. Some other links that can be used to get further reading on this subject are Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom, and a video that can provide help is Questioning Styles and Strategies. These are just a few other links that can proved more insight into what a teacher can do while trying to achieve students to respond when asked a question.