201108 Book Beat How to Ask the Right Questions

7/31/2019 201108 Book Beat How to Ask the Right Questions

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The NaTioNal ScieNce TeacherS aSSociaTioN

Questions, questions, questions! They are a

large part o a teachers stock-in-trade. We usequestions to help students review, to check oncomprehension, to stimulate critical thinking,to encourage creativity, to emphasize a point,to control classroom activities and cut downon disruptive behavior, to help determine

grades, to encourage discussion, to discour-age inattentiveness, and or other reasons andpurposes. Questioning style and content variesrom teacher to teacher, student group to stu-dent group, and situation to situation.

The aim o this How to . . . booklet is tohelp you ocus on a common teaching activ-itythe asking o questions. To illustrate some

o the classications and concepts discussed,excerpts rom a videotaped lesson to thirdgraders on magnetism appears at the end othis booklet.

As teachers we sometimes get so involvedin asking questions that we dont give much

time to analyzing why and how we do it;questioning seems such a natural technique.But i we analyzed the questions we ask dur-ing a class period, we might be surprised bythe results. We would probably discover thatmost questions are designed to determine only

whether a student does or does not know a

particular item o inormation. But our ques-tions need to do more.

Who can briefly review what we did yesterday? Why dont you

pay attention?! What do you think would happen if. . . ? Whats

the name of the planet closest to the Sun? Do you think anything

else might have influenced your results? Wheres your

homework? Can you design an experiment to test the

hypothesis? Whats chlorophyll? How do you know thats

granite and not gneiss? Whats the answer to question 5?

The science curriculum improvementprojects o the 1960s promoted hands-onactivities in science and student inquiry, basedon the rationale that students develop bet-ter understandings o the nature o scienceand are more interested in science i they areactively involved in doing science.

Learning by doing, is still advocated inscience teaching now. However, while themanipulation o equipment and materials isimportant in science classrooms, it is alsonecessary that students minds be engaged bythe activity. Helping students develop theirproblem solving skills needs to be planned

orit does not necessarily occur as a byprod-uct o doing science.

The science curricula o the 1990s also re-fect the infuence o additional points o viewconcerning what is important or students to

learn. One o these is the emphasis on science,technology, and society (STS). STS proponents

argue that the purpose o school science isnot to create uture scientists but citizens whounderstand that science is multidimensionaland multidisciplinary, and who can participateintelligently in problem solving and decisionmaking about how science and technology areused.

Another emphasis, constructivism, is de-rived rom research in educational psychology

Photograph rom Digitalvision



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how To aSk The righT queSTioNS

about learning and is ocused on conceptualchange. Constructivists say that learners buildor construct their own knowledge based ontheir observations and experiences. I learnerssel-constructed knowledge diers rom theconcepts presented in ormal science instruc-

tion, then curriculum materials and instruc-tional approaches must be used that bringabout conceptual change (Roth, 1989).

All three emphases have implications orthe kinds o questions teachers ask in science.I students are to discover, i students are to

become better problem solvers, i students are

to comprehend that their intuitive, everydayways o explaining the world around themneed to be adapted in order to better describe,predict, explain, and control natural phenom-enathey need to develop higher-order think-ing skills. Some teachers believe that studentsmust learn acts rst, and then be asked to

think about them. This overlooks the impor-

tance o the many processes by which actsmay be acquired. Thinking is a way o learn-ing (Raths, Wasserman, Jonas, and Rothstein,1986, p. 23). Thereore, the kinds o ques-tions teachers ask infuence the level o think-

ing operations students engage in. We stillneed, at times, to check or the correct recall o

basic items o inormation, but this should beonly one o the reasons or asking questions,not the primary reason.

The remainder o this booklet is devotedto providing some methods which you can use

to analyze your questioning strategies and tosuggest some techniques or developing varietyin the kinds o questions you ask.

Tpes f QestsTo develop variety in questioning, you need to

know what kind o questions you commonlyask. Research on the questions teachers askshows that about 60 percent require onlyrecall o acts, 20 percent require students tothink, and 20 percent are procedural (Gall,Dunning, and Weathersby, 1971). By analyzing

your questioning behavior you may be able todecrease the percentage o recall questions andincrease the percentage that require studentsto think.

There are numerous systems or classiyingquestionssome are listed at the end o this

booklet (see page 13). Many o these systemsare based on the seven categories listed in

Blooms Taxonomy of Educational Objectives,Handbook I Cognitive Domain (1956). Nor-ris Sanders, who developed a classication

system or use with social studies materials,used Blooms taxonomy to place questions in

one o seven categories: (1) memoryrecall;(2) translationchanging inormation intodierent symbolic orm or language; (3) inter-pretationseeing relationships; (4) applica-tionsolving a lielike problem by drawing ongeneralizations and skills; (5) analysissolvinga problem rom conscious knowledge o the

parts and orms o thinking; (6) synthesissolving a problem requiring original creativethinking; and (7) evaluationmaking judg-ments according to standards (Sanders, 1966).

There are other classication systems

based on Blooms taxonomy. For example,Clegg, Farley, and Curran (1967) (also working

in social studies) developed six categories oquestions: memory, comprehension, applica-tion, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

In even less complex systems, questionsare classied as relating to eitherknowledge orhigherreerring to one or more o the othersix categories in Blooms Taxonomybut this

may be an oversimplication. It only helps youi you are emphasizing actual recall in yourquestions.

The Question Category System or Science(QCSS) (Blosser, 1973) consists o three levelso classication, two o which are describedin this booklet. Questions are rst classied

as being one o our major types: Managerial,Rhetorical, Closed, or Open (see Fig. 1).

Managerial Questions are those used by theteacher to keep the classroom operatingtomove activities (and students) toward the de-sired goals or the period, lesson, or unit. Suchquestions as Does everyone have the neces-

Fgre 1 MAjoR TyPES oF QuESTionS TEAchERS ASk (QcSS)

Qest Tpe Qest Ft

Maageral To keep the classroom operations moving

RetralTo emphasize a point, to reinorce an idea or

statement

clse

To check the retention o previously learned

inormation, to ocus thinking on a particular point or

commonly-held set o ideas

ope

To promote discussion or student interaction; to

stimulate student thinking; to allow reedom to

hypothesize, speculate, share ideas about possible

activities, etc.



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sary equipment? Will you turn to page 15,please? or Who needs more time to nishthe experiment? are managerial questions.

Rhetorical Questions are used by teach-

ers to reinorce a point or or emphasis. Thegreen coloring matter in plants is called chlo-rophyll, right? or Yesterday we said there

are three major groups o rocks: igneous,sedimentary, and metamorphic, okay? t intothis category. Teachers asking rhetorical ques-tions do not really anticipate receiving oral

student responses, although they sometimesget them.

Closed Questions are those or which thereare a limited number o acceptable responsesor right answers. What is the chemicalormula or water? What happened when

you switched rom low- to higher-power

magnication? or What are plant cell walls

made o? are questions which anticipatecertain answers. It is expected that studentshave already been exposed to the inorma-tion requested by a closed questionrom ateachers lecture, class activity, assigned read-ing, or some visual aid (lm, lmstrip, chart,

demonstration, etc.).Open Questions anticipate a wide range

o acceptable responses rather than one ortwo right answers. They draw on studentspast experiences but they also cause studentsto give and justiy their opinions, to iner or

identiy implications, to ormulate hypoth-eses, and to make judgments based on theirown values and standards. Examples o openquestions might include: I you were todesign a science display or the school bul-letin board, what would you include in thedisplay and why? What do you suppose

lie on Earth might be like with weaker grav-ity? What should be included in a projectto improve the school environment? or I

you suspected that you carried some genetic

abnormality, would you have children?I you want to get a little more sophisti-

cated in classiying your questions, the closedquestions and open questions categories can

be urther subdivided into the types o think-ing expected (see Fig. 2).

Closed questions need not always be othe actual recall type in which students areexpected to orally ll in the blanks or respond

with one- or two-word answers. They alsoinclude those which are designed to cause

students to classiy or pick out similaritiesand dierences, to apply previously learnedinormation to a new problem, or to make a

judgment using standards which have beensupplied. Both levels o thinking are impor-tant or students, but it is also important that

your questioning activities do not stay entirely

within the closed question areas.

hoW cAn you REcoGniZE QuESTion TyPES?

You can determine what types o questionsyou use most requently by analyzing thenumber o acceptable responses which arepossible. Also, ask yoursel whether thequestion encourages, or even requires, yourstudents to go beyond past inormation in or-mulating a response. Another technique is toanalyze key words or phrases in the question.

Words such as who, what, when, where, name,and sometimes how andwhy are requent signso closed questions (Blosser, 1973). Termssuch as discuss, interpret, explain, evaluate, com-

pare, if, orwhat ifmay call or more than theretrieval o memorized inormation (Groisser,1964).

One word o caution. Teachers some-times think that i they begin a question

withwhy, explain, compare, orinterpret theyare automatically encouraging their studentsto perorm divergent or evaluative thinkingoperations. They may be, but they may also

be requiring only cognitive-memory opera-tions i their question ocuses on inorma-tion available rom a previous lesson or the

students own experiences. The point is toguard against a belie in magic questioning

words which will assure more than cognitive-memory thinking by your students.

The wording o questions is important.Many times teachers have an excellent ideaor a question but ail to stimulate thinking byailing to consider how the question is goingto sound to the student. Some questions aretoo vagueWhat about Pasteur? Somequestions are so lengthy that the student

Fgre 2 LEVELS oF ThinkinG ExPEcTEd By QuESTionS

Qest Tpe Qest Ft

clse Qests

Cognitive-Memory Operations

Convergent Thinking Operations

ope QestsDivergent Thinking Operations

Evaluative Thinking Operations

(adapted rom Blosser, 1973, p. 10)



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gets bogged down in trying to keep the partsseparated as the teacher asks the question. I

you nd yoursel ormulating a long, involvedquestion, try changing it into a series o re-lated questions.

Why ASk A VARiETy oF QuESTionS?

I one o your objectives as a science teacher isto produce students who will be responsiblecitizens and use the knowledge and skills romscience classes in real-lie problem solving, you

will want to ask a variety o questions. Stress-

ing only closed questions encourages studentsto become skillul in the stockpiling andretrieval o data. While certain items o inor-mation are more conveniently memorized andrecalled than repeatedly looked up, the abilityto memorize inormation and recall it shouldnot be the onlynor the most important-ob-

jective o science teaching.Events and discoveries in science occur

all the time and at a rapid pace. Older ideasmust oten be reinterpreted or abandoned.It is unrealistic to assume that you can help

your students to acquire all o the scienticknowledge they will ever need to know. It ismore important to provide experiences thathelp students develop the skills o acquiring

and processing data into useul inormation.Open questions can help students developthese skills.

usg ope Qests

I we want our science students to developskills in problem solving and decision mak-ing, we need to ask them questions that will

stimulate higher-order thinking. This is a di-cult task and there are several reasons or thediculty. For instance, some students mayneed extensive practice beore they becomeskillul at higher-level thinking. When you askopen questions, you also ask students to takecognitive risks: to think o their own ideas. I

students have become comortable with tryingto come up with the right answers, they

may eel insecure i there are many possiblecorrect responses to a teachers question.

Also, some students may have become depen-dent on the thinking o others.

To help allay your students ears about

responding to open questions, you need to becomortable in developing and asking openquestions. Some useul sources or develop-ing open questions include: newspaper andmagazine articles, pictures, displays (on the

bulletin board, in a display case, in a science

corner, or on the demonstration desk), and

short science-related problem situations.Discrepant eventssituations which

present an inconsistency between whatpeople commonly believe should happen and

what does happencan also be an excellentocus or open questions. Additional sugges-tions can be ound in the reerences listed at

the end o this booklet.Dont overlook appropriate times or vary-

ing your questions when using activities andintroducing new topics. Using open questions

beore beginning a topic or unit can helpyou learn about your students backgroundsin this area and can help you stimulate their

interest. Using open questions, particularlythose designed to stimulate divergent think-ing, can help you and your class decideon things to investigate, suggest additionalactivities to consider, and oer related areas toexplore as individuals, in small groups, or as a

whole class.While your students are involved in labo-

ratory activities and investigations, you cancirculate among them and use several typeso questions. Open questions will challengethe more able students to consider alterna-tive ways o interpreting data or additional

hypotheses to orm and test. Then you canrame your responses to what students say in

ways that will help them think urther aboutthe topic. For instance, you can respond in a

way that claries a students idea:

Student: Gasoline prices are just toohigh. We need to use our science knowledge

to develop some alternatives.Teacher: You think we should take

some action to develop other kinds o uelsor sources o uels, so we can decrease ourdependence on gasoline.

Or you can probe by asking a student toelaborate on what has just been said:

Teacher: Tell me a little more about that,please?

In addition, you can ask students to ana-

lyze their ideas by (1) asking or examples, (2)asking or a summary o what has been said,(3) asking about inconsistencies in arguments,(4) asking about alternatives, (5) asking how

data might be classied, (6) asking how thatdata be compared, (7) asking what data sup-port the idea, and (8) asking about assump-tions (Raths et al., 1986, p. 171172).

When an activity has been completedand your class reassembles, either as a wholeclass or in small groups, asking a variety o



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questions is again important. Closed ques-tions can be used to determine the extent oagreement or disagreement among people

who supposedly worked on the same activity(Thier, 1970, p. 149). Open questions can beasked toward the close o the discussion tostimulate urther investigation as well as to setthe stage or additional activities.

Te Vale f SleeA common nding in classrooms is thatteachers do most o the talking. A requently

stated generalization is that someone is talking60 percent o the time, and 60 percent o thattime the person speaking is the teacher. Dillon(1988, pp. 1516) summarizes the situation

by saying, The teacher always has the foor

in classroom conversation. The teacher asks aquestion, and a student answers; the teacherreacts to the students response, and thenasks another question.

In attempting to improve your ques-tioning behaviorby concentrating less onquestions that stimulate only actual recall

(cognitive-memory thinking) and more ondeveloping open questionsyou have obli-gated yoursel to provide your students withthe opportunity to do two things: to haveenough time to think about and ormulate anadequate response and to have the time toshare this response with their classmates as

well as with you.This means that you consciously need to

learn to pause (Far West Laboratory, 1968;Blosser, 1973) or to build in wait time (Rowe,1973). How long should you pause or wait?

Suggestions range rom 3 to 5 seconds. Howlong do most teachers wait ater asking aquestion until they call on a student, rephrasethe question, or answer it themselves? Re-search shows a range o 0.5 to 1.2 seconds.

Thanks to the work and writing o MaryBudd Rowe, most science teachers knowabout the concept o wait time. Rowes work

is based on extensive experience with el-ementary school teachers and children who

were using hands-on science materials. Rowe

(1974a, p. 265) has dierentiated betweenwait time I, ater a teacher has asked a ques-tion and beore a student responds, and wait

time II, ater a student responds and beorethe teacher reacts to the students response.

Pausing ater asking a question (wait timeI) provides your students with the opportunityto think about your question and to ormulatea response. Pausing ater a student responds(wait time II) provides the student with the

opportunity to add to, modiy, or elaborate onthe response. It also provides an opportunity

or additional students to react to the respon-dents remarks, adding their own ideas.

Lake (1973) agrees with Rowe about theimportance o wait time I and II. He dier-entiates between them by reerring to wait

time I as student controlled and wait timeII as teacher controlled. Lakes rationale isthat, although the teacher may tell the classto take time to think beore volunteering toanswer, some eager student may jump in witha response beore the teacher is ready or it.However, when the teacher talks again ater

a student has responded is entirely up to theteacher.

SiLEncE WoRkS

Rowe (1987, pp. 9798) has reported thatwhen teachers were able to extend their waittimes to three seconds or more, one or moreo the ollowing things happened.

1. The length o student responsesincreased.2. The number o unsolicited but

appropriate responses by students

increased.3. Failures to respond decreased.4. Condence, as refected in ewerinfected responses, increased.5. The incidence o speculative thinkingincreased.

6. Teacher-centered show-and-tell de-creased and student-student comparingincreased.7. The number o inerences and iner-ences supported by evidence increased.

TeacherQuestion

StudentResponse

TeacherReactionPAUSE

(wait time I)PAUSE

(wait time II)

Fgre 3 TiMES WhEn iT iS iMPoRTAnT To PAuSE



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8. The number o questions studentsasked increased, as did the number oexperiments they proposed.

9. Contributions by slow learnersincreased.10. Disciplinary moves decreased.

Tobin (1987), in a review o 50 publishedstudies o wait-time research that covereda 20-year period, reported similar ndings.In addition to those Rowe reported, Tobin

identied ewer peer interruptions and higherlevels o student achievement with extended

wait time. Tobins review (1987, pp. 76-79)also emphasized the act that teachers who

were able to learn to increase their wait timechanged their behavior. They

1. decreased the amount o teacher talkduring the lesson2. repeated themselves less

3. asked ewer questions per class4. asked more questions that allowed

or responses rom more than onestudent5. asked ewer lower-level questions6. asked more probing questions7. did less repeating o students re-sponses8. asked more application questions

9. reported some increase in anxiety asthey began to try to extend their waittime.

LEARninG To ALLoW SiLEncE

How do you learn to maintain what Dillon(1988, pp. 165-166) calls deliberate si-

lence? Dillon admits that it provokes anxietynot to talk when the usual classroom situationis a series o rapid exchanges. He suggeststhat, at home, you time three seconds with astopwatch or a metronome to give yoursel asense o how long it is. Then, in the class-room, he suggests using a technique he has

tested and ound to workasking a questionand then silently singing in your mind:

Baa, baa, black sheep

Have you any wool?This, Dillon says, lasts our seconds but

anxious teachers will rush through it in twoto three seconds. I you decide to continue to

wait, continue to silently sing in your mind:Yes sir, yes sir

Three bags full.According to Dillon, by this time some

student will have responded, and you canswitch to wait time II by nishing your silent

song:

One for my masterOne for my dame

One for the little boyWho lives in the lane.

Dillon acknowledges that this soundssilly. Maintaining deliberate silence is hard todo, but it is a sound teaching strategy.

What i you get silence when you didnot deliberately plan or it? Becoming skilled

at waiting takes time and practice. Studentscan maintain deliberate silence, too. Whenstudents ail to respond, dont give uptry todiagnose some possible reasons or this situ-ation. As discussed earlier, students may not

be accustomed to questions or which thereis more than one appropriate response. It is

also possible that your students may not haveenough inormation to be able to do certainactivities with real insight.

Ater you have given your students timeto think, i they continue to remain silent, you

need to initiate the dialogue. Most teachersjust rephrase the question that did not get a

response. This may work, or it may not. Whatyou decide to do is probably infuenced, atleast in part, by your reading o your students

behavior. Did they not respond because yourquestion was not clearly stated? Was the ques-tion too complex or this student group? Did

your students have enough inormation about

the question topic so they could ormulate aresponse? How many students in this class areunwilling to risk giving a response that might

not be acceptable? Sometimes, very ablestudents who are highly competitive or whoperceive themselves as having to meet high

standards o achievement are not comortableas risk-takers. Perhaps your students still arenot certain that you really mean it when youtell them you want to hear what they thinkand that you are not looking or one particularanswer.

Raths et al. (1986, p. 185) provide some

guidelines or teachers so they can allevi-ate stress or students who are not initially

comortable with questions challenging themto think.

1. Make sure students understand thenature o activitieswhat each taskinvolves and what is expected o them.(This is not accomplished in a single

telling but will need to be rearmedmany times.)2. Provide careul, sequential orienta-tion to new material, moving through itin slow steps.



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3. Provide material in which studentscan experience success almost immedi-ately.

4. Reassure students when you noticethem eeling stressed.5. Dont abandon your use o thinkingactivities ater only a ew tries. Muchexperience is needed to produce desiredresults.

6. Dont expect miracles. It may take

months o daily practice in teaching orhigher-level thinking to change behaviorpatterns.7. Select activities or which studentshave at least some background inorma-tion. They cannot process data unlessthey have some data to begin with.

8. Use challenging questions judiciouslyand sparingly, especially at rst.

I silence persists, what do you do? Well,you can use the time to develop two or three

alternative questions that might help preparethe group or the original question. You may

decide to conduct a short review to reinorcepreviously taught material. Or, you can ask

your students to identiy the word or wordsin the original question that they do notunderstand. I you can use a problem solv-ing approach with the students, this shouldhelp them understand that you want to help

them overcome their diculties and that yourintent is not to rustrate them by asking ques-tions they cannot answer.

One nal comment about silence andwait time. Tobin, in his 1987 review, cited sev-eral researchers who speculated that it is un-necessary to wait 3 to 5 seconds ater asking

a actual recall question. Their rationale wasthat these are low-level questions designedto see what a student knows rom memory,appropriate or drill and practice or reviewsessions where the pace is relatively rapid.However, higher-level questions do merit a3-to 5-second pause by the teacher beore a

student response is requested.

Atal Fatrs Relate tQestgBy now you are probably wondering i thereare strategies to be considered in analyzing

your questioning behavior in addition tothose o varying the questions and learning to

remain silent. There are.One o these is implicit in Chapter

11entitled Inquisition Versus InquiryinRowes methods bookTeaching Science as Con-

tinuous Inquiry. She dierentiates by saying,Inquiry is something teachers and studentsmay do together. Inquisition is somethingteachers do to students (Rowe, 1973, p.333).

What does this mean? Well, or onething, your questions should help studentslearn to investigate or themselves rather thandetermine i students have been properlyindoctrinated with acts.

It also means that you need to decrease

the number o questions you ask during alesson. Dont all into the trap o thinkingthe more questions, the better the teaching.By learning to ask open questions which aredesigned to stimulate thinking and conse-quently produce longer student responses,and by learning to pause at the appropriate

times, you will nd that the pace o the lessonslows down.

This change o pace means you probably

will cover less material. What you and yourstudents do discuss, however, will most likely

be in greater depth. In addition, you may ndyour students discussing related ideas that

you had not oreseen when you planned thelesson.

ThE RiGhT cLASSRooM ATMoSPhERE

It is unrealistic to think you are going to

successully use open questions, even whenyou have learned to ormulate them and haveappropriate materials and activities, i you

do not have a classroom atmosphere that isconducive to your students sharing ideas andopinions.

Students are not likely to volunteer very

much i they eel unsae or inadequate. Youhave to make certain that your studentsresponses are accepted and that the studentsthemselves are respected as individuals. Stu-dents experience verbal (and nonverbal) put-downs i their classmates mutter Dummy!or What do you know? They are not likely

to continue to participate when their contri-

butions meet with rejection. This does notmean that students should never be told thattheir responses are incorrect or inadequate.Such eedback must be skillully phrased toencourage them to think again and modiytheir responses.

In addition, you need to rerain romalways providing an authoritative answer toevery question. Your students need to learnto live with uncertainty as they inquire andexplore.



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Sometimes teachers inadvertently provideanswers as they attempt to reinorce theirstudents. They do not mean to set themselvesup as the nal authority, but in reinorcingresponses they create a dependency in theirstudents to look to the teacher or the nal

determination o the adequacy or correctnesso a response.

Rowe (1974b, p. 293) discovered thatwhen teachers had a high rate o reinorce-ment o student responses, their studentsdid not engage in as much exploration andinquiry. Considering the teacher and student

behavior observed and recorded, Rowe con-cluded that rewarding or sanctioning (as shecalls it) might be undermining condence andcausing students not to eel sae to explore.

Rowe (1974b, p. 294) also speculatedthat high rates o reinorcement by teachersmight discourage the sharing o ideas since

one student might get praised or an idea rst

developed by another student.Room arrangements can hinder student

interaction and discussion i xed desks ortables cause students to have to talk to the

backs o each others heads. You are the best

judge o how to modiy seating arrangementswhen you want small group or total class dis-cussions. Another more subtle actor relatedto discussions is your physical position duringthe discussion. I you really want the interac-tion to fow reely, try taking a position thatputs you on the same plane as your students.

When you stand or sit above them, you sig-niy your role as nal authority, and they tendto look at you even when addressing theirremarks to a classmate.

QuESTionS And LESSon cLARiTy

Lesson clarity reers to how understandableand easy-to-interpret a lesson is to students.Teachers requently present inormation tostudents and then ask, Are there any ques-tions? This is not the most eective way odetermining i your explanation has been an

understandable one. Borich (1990, p. 129)has suggested using a steering group.

A steering group consists o a smallnumber o low-, average-, and high-abilitystudents who can be queried on task-relevantknowledge. You do not tell your studentsthat you are appointing them to this steer-ing groupthat inormation is just or you.

Once you have identied your steering group,direct some questions to these students. Ithe high-ability students cannot answer your

questions, then you probably need to reteach

the lesson to the entire class. I the averagestudents cannot answer the questions but thehigh-ability students can, you also probablyneed to do some reteaching beore proceedingto new material or to applications o what youthought you had taught. I the low-ability stu-dents cannot answer correctly, but the average

and high-ability students can, then you willneed to provide some individualized materi-als or tutorial assistance or the low-ability

students so that they, too, can be successul.This is a much more eective technique

or seeing how clear your instruction has beenthan the usual perunctory Any questions

over that? Also, most classes are sucientlylarge enough so that you can change themembers o the steering group rom time totime so that these students do not come tothink o themselves as being picked on.Keep in mind that the steering group does not

become the exclusive ocus or your ques-

tionsit is used when you want to determine

i you can proceed or i you need to reteachbeore moving on.

youR PERSonAL PhiLoSoPhy

A nal and most important actor relates toyour personal philosophy o education and to

your perception o your role as teacher. I youconsider your major responsibility to be thato the transmission o a body o knowledge,

you have probably ound much to argue within the material you have just read. One o

Photograph rom National Education Association. Joe Di Do photographer



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The NaTioNal ScieNce TeacherS aSSociaTioN10

your primary objectives is probably exposingyour students to as much o the large amounto accumulated inormation o science as theycan comprehend at their given level o intel-lectual development. Most o the questions

you ask to determine how well you are achiev-

ing this objective are o the closed questiontype and probably the majority o those ques-tions stress cognitive-memory thinking.

However, i you eel that one o your mostimportant contributions to your students isthat o providing them with the opportunityto learn to use process skills (observation,

classication, measurement, hypothesizing,etc.) to investigate and identiy problems, andto develop methods or possible solutions,

you have probably discovered, in reviewingthe methods you use in teaching and ques-tioning, that you already are practicing manyo the behaviors described.

No teacher operates all the time either asdispenser o inormation or guide to learning.

But, are you aware o which role you tend toassume most o the time in your teaching?

Aalzg yr QestgBeavr

What are some ways to determine how youunction, particularly in your questioning? Jotdown the questions you plan to ask duringa particular lesson. (You may already be inthe habit o doing this.) Once written down,

check the level o thinking these questionsare intended to stimulate. Do this rom timeto time and rom topic to topic since sometopics and activities produce more variety inquestioning than others.

You can provide yoursel with inormationabout your verbal behavior during a lesson

by tape recording it (see Fig. 4). Some people

Fgre 4 A PoSSiBLE cycLE FoR iMPRoVinG

youR QuESTioninG SkiLLS

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1991, 1995, 2000 National Science Teachers Association1840 Wilson BoulevardArlington, VA 222013000

Stock No. PB038X3ISBN 13: 978-0-87355-102-1ISBN 10: 0-87355-102-8Printed in the U.S.A.on recycled paper

Te AtrTe Atr

The late Patricia E.Blosser was aprofessor of scienceeducation in theDepartment ofEducation Studies at

Ohio State Universityat Columbus.

C i ht 2000 NSTA All i ht d F i f ti t t / i i

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201108 Book Beat How to Ask the Right Questions