Blended learning 3

Teacher questioning

What are some purposes/reasons you would have for teachers asking questions?

• Management• Initiating• Feedback• Promoting learning• Debriefing• Non pedagogical purposes

• Management:• to pull a student who is dreaming/off task

back into line:• to build students' self esteem/confidence

Initiating

• discover the current range of opinions/explanations in the class to find out how much they already know AND/OR to start from their ideas or the conflicts between these

• to stimulate debate/discussion

• see if the students can suggest what to do next or how to do it

• to generate a need to know by posing an intriguing question or problem

Feedback

• do they recall some past work you hope to assume?

• are they understanding?

• what are their constructed meanings?

• how are they reacting (e.g. to an issue)?

• a dilemma on feedback: do you ask one student (if so who) or the whole class (if so how)?

Promoting learning

• to stimulate a particular aspect of quality learning e.g. to maximize linking to the last topic or to their ideas

• to build a culture where students are expected to be intellectually engaged

• to have students work out the next bit of content (Principle 2)

• to extend the work by applying it to new situations

Debriefing

• This can involve any of a content, learning or social agenda

• Variety is crucial –do not ask the same sorts of questions each time

Debriefing with a content agenda

• Linking the activity to big ideas• Linking different activities to the same big idea• Linking different ideas

Debriefing with a learning agenda

• Highlighting good learning behaviours, teaching procedures and (new) types of thinking

• Debriefing on whether learning occurred –did some students rethink/change or elaborate their views/understandings

• Debriefing on what is still puzzling/unclear

Debriefing with a social agenda

• What are good collaborative behaviours?• Why these are worth investing time in

building?• How they worked from this perspective• How they might change in the future

Some of the above purposes illustrate Principle 1 (sharing intellectual control)

Closed v open questions

Closed (convergent) questions: often just one correct answer (or a limited number of intended answers)

• provide clear focus• tend to require instant feedback• can build confidence in students (can also

threaten)• lower order cognitive challenge?

The content is an important factor here

English teachers are often working with divergent content

Science teachers are often working with convergent content

Open-ended (divergent) questions: several possible valid answers, perhaps leading in unexpected directions• open up possibilities • perhaps less threatening to students?? (not

just one right answer)• can be useful in stimulating lateral thinking

(‘What if ?’ questions)

Open v Closed questions

• Both have uses but some teachers do ask too many closed questions. Some situations are more appropriate to one form or the other.

• There is a place for expecting particular responses: revision, feedback, principle 2. This is part of good teaching, but do not set it up as a (phoney) discussion. If you expect one answer do not pretend to ask students what they think.

Pedagogical v non pedagogical questions

Pedagogical questions: directly relating to the set curriculum (subject content)

• usually planned (but not always!) with some logical sequence in mind

Non-pedagogical questions: building relationships and encouraging stronger sense of community

• engaging the learner as a social being • could mean the difference between engagement or

alienation