What are the benefits for students when teachers use effective questions?
Bloom in his work Taxonomy of Educational Objectives states that one of the main educational objectives is to facilitate communication (xv). With this in mind, new and interactive methods that involve students should be applied. One of these methods is questioning. The usage of effective questions in the teaching process can be very efficient and promote students involvement in the process. First of all, by using effective questions a teacher always holds the attention of students as he/she addresses the affective domain of knowledge (“Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” n.d). They are not able to perform some other activity because students have to answer the questions of a teacher. Moreover, this method promotes the development of critical thinking among students. However, questions should not be standard and to give the right answer a student should use a creative approach. That is why these questions should be created in advance and a teacher should think about which processes they will stimulate and what abilities develop.
How will you provide opportunities for students to discuss their questions?
Jerome Burner emphasizes the great importance of giving students the opportunity to discuss some questions which need collective thinking or brainstorming (xx). There are several main purposes for it. First of all, by discussing a question together, students will be able to obtain basic skills of team work and develop their collective thinking. Moreover, it is vital for students to obtain tolerance and respect for another point of view and teamwork will be able to promote the development of these qualities. That is why group discussion should be organized. First of all, students should be separated into several groups. These students should sit together and find out the answer during a certain period of time.
How can effective questions help the diverse learner in your classroom?
In the work Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences Gardner underlines that “Intelligences are always expressed in the context of specific tasks” (xxxiv). Taking into account that it is one of the main purposes of education, questioning as the method can be used with this purpose. There is no use denying the fact that diverse learner often needs some special approach and way of the presentation of information. That is why the practice of effective questions can be one of the best possible solutions. The reason for this statement lies in the high variability of this method. The teacher can ask different questions that take into account the peculiarities of each student in the classroom and in this way develop different bits of intelligence of students (“Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences” n.d). Moreover, questions could be created in order to help and develop the main aspects of the diverse learner and promote his/her further involvement in the education process. That is why we can use this approach. Additionally, all advantages of questioning, which were mentioned above, can also help a teacher to create his own approach to this issue.
How do good questioning skills help with your teaching students the close reading of the text?
The work The Process of Education by Jerome Burner is devoted to the analysis of the main peculiarities and purposes of education. Moreover, he also suggests some cogitations about the methods of “cultivating intellect” (Burner xi). Another benefit of questioning is its positive influence on the understanding of the main ideas which some books or texts convey. The thing is that reading a book or a text, a student does not think much about their content, trying to reach the end with the intention to think about a book later. However, this approach results in a low level of understanding of a text. The situation can be improved by using special questions created for a better understanding of the main ideas of a certain text. These questions will change the approach to the process of reading. Having the list of questions which are made to understand the idea of a book better, a student will look for answers while reading and that is why he/she will obtain more information (“Jerome Bruner and the process of education”. n.d). With this in mind, it is possible to suggest the creation of a special list of questions for every text which should be analyzed by students. This list can be distributed between them with the intention to discuss the key issues after the reading of the text.
In what ways will you use students’ responses to differentiate your instruction?
John Dewey states the fact that first of all education should be based on the experience of students (Dewey 19). Understanding the great importance of experience in the teaching process, it is possible to say that questioning provides a great number of possibilities for differentiating teacher’s instructions and evaluation of students experience. Their responses to questions can serve as the best indicator of the level of understanding of the topic which is studied now. That is why these questions can be changed under certain conditions. First of all, the level of knowledge in a certain field should be taken into account. It is obvious that questions should be more difficult if students have deep and clear knowledge. However, if there are certain drawbacks in the level of understanding of the topic, questions should be much easier for students to be able to respond and take an active part in the discussion. These questions can be taken as new and modern ways of teaching which combine education and personal experience (“John Dewey’s Philosophy of Experience and Education” n.d).
Works Cited
Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. n.d.. Web.
Bloom, Benjamin. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Book 1: Cognitive Domain. Boston: Addison Wesley Publishing Company. 1984. Print.
Burner, Jerome. The Process of Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.1976. Print.
Dewey, John. Experience And Education. New York: Free Press. 1997. Print.
Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books. 2011. Print.
Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. n.d.. Web.
Jerome Bruner and the process of education. n.d.. Web.
John Dewey’s Philosophy of Experience and Education, n.d.. Web.