Answers to Questioning

Today I had to go to an all day training because I am still in getting-my-certification mode. The first part was about mental health stigmas in school, which I found interesting, but repetitive (mainly because I was a psych major and I know way more about these mental health disorders than I ever wanted. Plus, this class today just scratched the surface.) The second part was about how to use effective questions while teaching and it really piqued my interest.

I had no idea how bad I was at using questions to help my students become higher level thinkers. Let me tell you, I'm awful. I have learned about the extended wait time 15-20 seconds and the Bloom's taxonomy.... but that is nothing compared to the world I saw today. Plus, the words "Bloom's taxonomy" give me mental images of taxidermy that incorporates flowers and I get side tracked.

Here's a few answers to questions that you may or may not be asking.

1. Sure, we all know about wait time, but did you know there are actually 2, yes 2 wait times? Well, there are and the second one comes after a student has answered a question. You should wait 3-5 seconds before moving on so that the class has time to process the answer. It seems that sometimes slowing down is the only way to speed up.

2. My mom and I have been in heated debates about the need for a lesson plan. I say they are a waste of time because I actually write them after the fact because I usually don't know enough about my subject matter until the night before. Therefore it is more of a lesson reflection than a plan. I realize this is mostly due to the fact that as a first year teacher who isn't a science guru I have to learn the lesson myself before I teach it to my students. This will pass in a few years I am sure. When I questioned our facilitator on how to plan questions that you would ask during your lesson, she told me to ask myself what I would want to know about the subject matter. "Well, DUH!!!!" I thought. This was a big light bulb moment for me because she's exactly right and not that this helps my mom's case any, but maybe not neccessarily writing a lesson plan but simply writing down some questions from low to high level thinking that would keep my lessons focused and educational. They would be questions that I want to know the answers to before even teaching the lessons and therefore would probably mean more to me while I am listening to students' comments during class.

3. Socratic questioning... never really paid attention to this before but it seems like it would be very helpful. It really does develop a whole lesson from engaging students all the way through elaboration and evaluation. You can use THINK to remember it.
T- Take a look at the task. Ask questions about all parts, elements and tasks to be done. Keep this going until all observations are discussed.
H- How about comparisons? Ask them to compare it to anything else they know. How is different from other things.Find relationships
I- Is the information organized? Make it organized with tables, charts, concept maps... pull it all together.
N- Now, do it right! Develop a plan for how to do accomplish the task. Ask students why their answer is right or wrong.
K- Know anything? Know how it applies. Ask if it can be applied to other lessons/tasks. Sum up what you have learned. Refer to main idea. Ask students to take a position on the issue if there is one.

This seems like a great technique to teach students to have them help assess their own learning.

4. A big issue that I struggle with is not knowing an answer. While I do know that I do not have to know, I sometimes don't want some of my AP students to know I do not know for fear that they really know that I don't know anything. Ok, sorry but I couldn't help writing an "I know you know I know" statement. That's what I really feel like though. You know!? Ok, I'll stop now. I've really gotten good at putting the question back on them with a "What do you think?" or "Why don't we look it up?" or plain ole "I'm not sure, I'll ask and get back to you."

5. Verbally process questions that arise when reading. Modeling how to ask a question and having questions can be beneficial for students who are nervous about asking or just don't feel comfortable doing so in a class setting. I never thought of this before today.

6. Did you know that if the question begins with WHY then it is a higher level thinking question? So from now on I'm going to try to do at least 1 "WHY" question per day so that I can open the door to a flood of possibilities.

7. Saved my favorite for last.... Question Cubes. You make an actual cube (out of card stock or whatever you like) and you put questions related to your subject matter on each side. We are essentially finished with our physics unit but I made one of these cubes today that I could use for next year while teaching how to solve the different word problems using the physics formulas we have learned. Let's pretend there is a problem up on the board. I think it would be really fun to have students come up and roll the cube and have to answer what it says. (Ok, so mine technically doesn't have an actual question on it, but you can probably see how it relates to higher level thinking and these ideas were all formed from questions but the cube is too small to write out the whole thing. I would surely prompt my students with what is expected of them.) This would also be reinforcing different learning styles as the students had to do the sometimes silly stunts that the cube states.

1. Draw a picture (of the word problem.)
2. Describe (what is happening in your own words.)
3. Action! (Act it out for us... this actually came from a jeopardy game we did for our test review. One of the topics was action and they had to act out the word for their team to guess. We wouldn't have to guess the problem because it would be in front of us, but I like this side of the cube because it adds the element of play to the lesson.)
4. Form a similar word problem. (Student would have to think of something else that you would use the same formula to solve.)
5. Give an example. (Student tells class how this relates to real life or talks about a personal experience dealing with the problem.)
6. Solve it. (Student would have to select the correct formula and plug in the given parts to solve the equation. The cool thing is that this doesn't have to happen last because it would be effective at any time during the exercise. Also, isn't solving the equation what you wanted to have them do anyway?)

I realize this whole 6 different tasks for one problem could become a time issue, so I have thought about switching out "Solve it" for "Find the formula" and then maybe just rolling once or twice before solving the problem.

Ok, that is enough. Today is the earliest I will go home since Thanksgiving. I really did learn a whole bunch though and look forward to using these strategies for the rest of the year. These are the kinds of trainings that should be done for new teachers not the boring stuff that they keep repeating over and over and over!!!

goodnight- coach b!