Weekly Investment Effective Questioning

Weekly Essential Question:

How do we transition between techniques using effective questions?

Key Questions:

Are all questions the same?

What is the coolest teacher "question tip" you want to incorporate?

Why would asking questions at higher levels of cognition (think Bloom) matter?

What is Student Agency or Student Voice?

Key Takeaways:

Something I found throughout all of the readings was that teachers can't just ask yes/no or multiple choice questions. Asking questions to higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy is what you want.

• gets students to really think about and comprehend what they're learning
• that's when the WHY question comes in (thanks Dr. Foster for pushing us with always knowing the why)!

Dyer reading

The second sentence really caught me off guard. It says, "...Research shows that teachers ask between 300–400 questions per day..."

• If I really think about it, yes it is definitely true!
• about 3 questions/student/period, about 20 students/period, about 8 periods/day = 480 questions asked!!
• that's a lot of questions! If a teacher is going to ask that many questions a day, they need to make them matter by being effective!

There was a good section on "Handling Student Responses." Some different methods were reinforcing, probing, redirecting and rephrasing. 

• I think that knowing how to use these is important. Use each one for different situations; praise the student who doesn't answer often, probe the student who answers with a general statement, redirect when you want to check another students understanding with this students response, and rephrase when students don't quite get the question!

Another thing that stuck out to me was responding to student questions: "Often, students do not realize how much they actually know."

• if a teacher helps them to realize that they actually know the answer to their question on their own, then the "light bulb" goes off in their heads. That's the moment I want to see in every single one of my students!

Tweek Your Teach

"School sucks" was the premise for this reading. Students just sit there and are lectured at (for the most part). Nobody learns anything and nobody wants to be there.

• This is why I really love ag! I've heard so many stories (and even seen some in my high school) where students don't do well and don't want to be in school in their standard subjects but they get to ag and they love it!
• Get students up and moving; this will help them to get their thoughts flowing as well as actually wanting to be there! (For example, this is what I wanted to do with my interest approach lesson this past week)
• They may not get it the first time (or you may have to keep trying different ways of teaching) but you will get it eventually. Just keep going and you will get to where you want to be eventually!

Pursue Passion

This was about how Google let their employees have a day to work on whatever they wanted; to explore new inventions or ideas that the employee had. This significantly worked and out come things like Gmail!

• This is like inquiry based learning for me in a way. They can have questions or thoughts, then have time to explore. They can apply what they know from the classroom (the students) or work (Google employees) and do something for themselves!
• This could also be related to SAE projects! Students get to explore anything that suits their interests, whether or not it has to deal with agriculture. They have time outside of school to do that and sometimes in school (especially to update records as that is a major point of SAE).

This all makes work and school not so mundane!

I will strive to keep my students engaged by asking meaningful questions and challenging them to go beyond how far they think they can!

I want to inspire my students to go out into the world and follow their dreams no matter what they are. I may be an agriculture teacher but that doesn't mean that all of my students have to pursue careers in ag (but they definitely should)! My hope is that all students when they get out of high school (no matter if they take ag) will be well rounded, respectful, knowledgeable citizens who strive to make themselves better and help others.

References

Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellence. (2015). Using Effective Questions. Retrieved from http://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/engaging-students/using-effective-questions.html 

 

Dyer, J.E. (n.d.) Effective Questioning Techniques. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC08400.pdf 

 

Read/View: Tweak Your Teach: Dr. Tae's Building a New Culture of Teaching and Learning 

 

Read: Pursue Passion: Demand Google 20% Time at School