Importance of Questions and Feedback - Assignment Example

Questioning Questioning A question is any sentence which has an interrogative form or function. In room settings, teacher questions are defined as instructional cues or stimuli that convey to students the content elements to be learned and directions for what they are to do and how they are to do it (Cotton, n. d. p.1). Generally speaking questions are asked for getting answers or information. Mainly questions are asked using interrogative sentences. At the same time questions can be asked with the help of imperative sentences such as "Tell me what one plus one is"; or “Would you give me ten dollars?" etc. In any case, the ultimate aim of a question is to collect information from another person or to test the knowledge of another person. In academic world, questions have more importance than anything else. In fact according to the modern educational philosophies, the teacher should ask questions to the students and the students should give answers to that. When the student fails to answer the question, the teacher should guide him to find out the answer. Curiosity is necessary for the students to learn a topic well. In order to develop curiosity, the teacher should ask interesting questions to the students. These questions should be asked in particular patter; easy to difficult. Initial questions should be easy so that the student may answer it easily. However the last questions should be difficult so that the students fail to answer it. In other words, the teacher should create a scenario in which the students were guides from a known situation to an unknown situation. Only in such an unknown situation, the students develop interest or curiosity in the topic and will attend the class properly. Questions are asked in classes in order to: To develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved in lessons; To evaluate students’ preparation and check on homework or seatwork completion; To develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes; To review and summarize previous lessons; To nurture insights by exposing new relationships; To assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives; To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own (Cotton, n. d. p.1). The teacher normally asks two types of questions to the students; high and low level questions. Low level questions are intended to test the knowledge level of the students whereas the high level questions may test the understanding level of the students. For example, who is the president of America is a low order question which tests only the knowledge level of the students. On the other hand, what are the contributions of Obama to the public is a high order question which tests the understanding of the students about Obama and his contributions. It is easy to score more marks in examinations which use only the low order or objective type questions whereas it is difficult to score more marks when high order or descriptive type questions were asked in the examinations. In short, questions have a major role in the development of curriculum and judicious usage of different type of questions can make the transfer of knowledge more effectively from the teacher to students. This paper briefly analyses the importance of questions in educational curriculum with the help of the feedbacks I received from the two classes which I observed. Feedbacks I received from the graduate class The graduate class which I observed first for about 3 hours was consisting of only 17 students. The course was based on theoretical perspectives and developing educational strategy for public’s health. The teacher used high order questions extensively in this class in order to give in depth knowledge to the students. “A thoughtful Teacher is intentional in making room for student questions— both spontaneous and planned. Also, active and respectful listening—by both students and teacher—seems to be a hallmark of this classroom community” (How Can Quality Questioning Transform Classrooms?, n. d,p.3-4). The teacher who taught in the graduate class I observed was so smart so that nobody had any idea about what she was going to teach in the class. She asked certain general questions to the students and the students got no clue at all about teacher’s plans. She asked some questions with respect to their daily life and then slowly elaborated the questions to a much wider canvas. Only after five minutes, the students got some idea about the intentions of the teacher. Her transformation from low order questions to high order questions was smooth and nobody found any gap in the questions she asked. After around five minutes high order questions came one after another and the students found extreme difficulties in answering them. The teacher guided them to the answers and that also only after encouraging serious discussions among the students. The teacher remained silent for some time in order to encourage the discussion among student. “Silence can be golden! It can promote student thinking and foster more students’ formulating answers to more questions” (How Can Quality Questioning Transform Classrooms?, n. d,p.14) If I was a teacher in this class I would have reduce the number of high order questions in this class. In my opinion, the teacher presented so many high order questions during the three hours time and the students got less time for critical thinking, analysis or discussion. In my opinion, the students cannot grasp such a huge amount of contents in a short period of time. It is better to allot more time for the discussion of the difficult topics. Feedbacks I received from the undergraduate class Class two was an undergraduate class consisting of 69 students. I observed this science class for 3 hours and most of the questions were recall questions. The teacher asked only objective type questions in this class and the students found no difficulty in answering it. The teacher even gave some choices to the students when the students found some difficulty in answering some of the questions. According to Bloom’s taxonomy of education, Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation are the six question categories (Bloom et al, 1956). The teacher asked only the Knowledge level questions to this class. In my opinion, the above class was ineffective since the teacher tested only the surface level knowledge of the students. Of course it was difficult for the teacher to manage 69 students in that class. If I was a teacher in that class, I would have divided that class into two. Instead of asking too much low order questions, I would have asked few high order questions in order to encourage discussion among the students. References 1. Bloom et al. (1956). Types of questions based on Bloom’s taxonomy. Retrieved from http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/questype.htm 2. How Can Quality Questioning Transform Classrooms?. (n. d). Retrieved from http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/6605_walsh_ch_1.pdf 3. Cotton K. (n. d.) Classroom questioning. Retrieved from http://www.learner.org/workshops/socialstudies/pdf/session6/6.ClassroomQuestioning.pdf Read More