How to Ask the Right Questions...

Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.

-Bernard Baruch

If you don't ask, you don't get.

-Mahatma Gandhi

The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the right questions.

-Claude Levi-Strauss

No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.

-Charles Steinmetz

There are hundreds of famous quotes on the importance of asking questions. As a teacher I hope to ask questions to my students that will engage them further in the lesson and will challenge their thinking processes. I hope my students will ask questions of me and of their peers to further their inquiry as well. When learning science it is so important for teachers to ask open-ended questions. Koch (2010) discusses three important types of questions to ask students in inquiry based science lessons. The first is to ask students questions that invite students to action (294). These types of questions are like, “What do you think will happen? How would you change this experiment if you repeated it?” The second type of question is to assess students’ ideas and previous knowledge (294). These types of questions are like, “How do earthworms take in their food? How would you describe the way the earthworms move?” The third type of question is to check for understanding (295). This type of question is like, “So what do you think is going on here?” This type of question allows the student to think critically.

Koch (2010) also offered four key tips to good questioning. I found these tips very helpful and I want to remember them for when I become a teacher.

1. Ask questions only if you are TRULY interested in knowing what the students are thinking. (Don’t just ask a question without any meaning behind it!)

2. Design questions to help students construct their own answers (i.e. Open ended questions)

3. Be okay with the silence! Allow appropriate wait time

4. Never answer your own questions. It is better to leave a question unanswered for a while than to answer it yourself (I have a habit of doing this and I want to stop it!)

Koch also goes in depth about wait time. Studies have shown that “longer wait times raise the quality of the student-teacher interactions and the level of the discourse” (296). I do not know why but I have always been afraid of silence, especially in the classroom. I love to talk and it is so hard for me to even silence my thoughts in my brain, but I need to learn to be okay with the silence. I need to learn that silence in the classroom means students are thinking about their thinking. Even in our group discussion in class this week, we had moments of silence. People were reflecting on their previous actions and coming up with new ideas. Sometimes people need to work up the courage to speak in the classroom as well. I think it is important for the teacher to communicate to her students that silence is totally okay and it is encouraged.