Blog Post 4

Questions are essential in the learning process and the problem is, is that many students are afraid to ask questions. As teachers we need to encourage students to keep asking questions so that they can fully understand what we are teaching. In the video Questioning Styles and Strategies the author gets all of the students involved into the discussion, asking them "open" questions. He is very encouraging towards the students and shows interests into what they have to say. I believe that is very important for teachers to do. He creates four different types of questions for the students to answer about the book making sure that they not only understand what the book is about but also about what they would like about living in Terabithia and how they pictured it. I think the way he approached this discussion was great because the students are understanding the text and they are also getting to be creative and use their imagination as well, to me I think the kids are more prone to discuss and answer questions if they can have a little fun doing so.

As Ben Johnson said in The Right Way to Ask Questionshe observed many of classrooms of different age levels and noticed that many kids would get by without answering a single question. I can relate to that, back in several of my high school classes there would be only a few students that were actually wanting to answer the questions, many students would try and hide and avoid getting called upon. It's very important to get the kids involved into the discussion and it is hard to keep the attention of every student. Mr. Johnson believes that when asking a question you should state the question, pause for a few seconds then call on a random student. I believe that strategy is one of the most effective ways because students will not know if they will be called on, so they should think of some type of answer. Another point Mr. Johnson touched on is that when you ask general questions to the class such as "Do you all understand?" the kids will either say nothing or just pretend that they do and say yes. As teachers we should avoid these types of questions, but ask them specific questions to see if they really understand and have other students expand on a fellow classmates response.

I also like what the article Three Ways to Ask Better Questions in the Classroom had to say about preparing your questions. It is a great habit to go through your lecture and think of questions the students may ask you and what questions you should ask them. Also I like what he touched on about "Playing with Questions." An example of that is writing a question on the board at the start of class or on a PowerPoint, leaving the students time to think about it.Mr.Weimer says we need to ask good questions and show the students the importance of asking questions, so that they learn to think critically.