Active Learning in Lecture : Questioning

Dr. Mok, Y.F.

Lecture Breakdown

Starting

Recall

Stimulate

Increase participation

Link to content

Teaching

Explaining-teaching

Check for understanding

Higher-order questioning

Wrapping Up

Summarize

Evaluate

Prepare for next lesson

Starting a Lecture

Simple questions to recall

Opening questions for starting or linking

Stimulate students to pose problems

Clarify problems, decide priority, respond, link

Stimulate

Recall Link to content

Increase participation

Examples

• After reading Ch.3., what images remain in your mind? What strikes you most? What keeps you unanswered?

• Suppose you found that element A is missing from Ch.3, what would you think the consequences will be? Generate some thinking to see if this lecture will give you some answers.

• I have got several suggestions for the consequences (list out students’ suggestions). I see that most of you have missed the central ideas of the problem that links to the missing of element. I will talk about the central ideas and link these ideas to the missing situations of element A. The most important and the first one is …. (get into lecture)

Subject Teaching

Use questions to keep a teaching flow of concepts

From factual to evaluative questions

Focus on concepts & complex ideas

Frequent breaks for questions & responses

Check for understanding

Explaining—teaching

Higher-order questioning (Bloom)

Examples

• How would you define element A? List the properties.

• I have just talked about the consequences of A missing from situation 1. How about comparing it with element A missing from situation 2.

• I have talked about a number of causes & effects regarding A. Which do you think is the most important one?

Wrapping Up a Lecture

Get students to summarize:for facilitating memory, checking understanding

Feedback from students for teaching reflection

Evaluate / Check learning

Summarize Prepare for next lesson

Examples

• The existence and absence of element A produce different consequences. Can you summarize all these situations and suggest what you understand from element A?

• What are the main points about the lesson content today. Can you synthesize something about element A and ….

• For Ch.4, you will find other elements that can alleviate the negative consequences of A. When you read, prepare to challenge the assumptions and properties of these other elements.

Avoid yes-no answers:

Is beauty an indicator of personality?

Why is beauty an indicator of personality?

Examples for Effective Questioning

Elaborate questions to help thinking:

How is a dualistic person different from a relativistic person?

How is a dualistic person different from a relativistic person?

Are they different from perceiving ideas?How do they approach right and wrong?

Change broad-based questions to give some focus for discussion:

What about the fall of the Berlin Wall?

How did the reunification of Germany affectEuropean economic conditions?

Davis, 1993

Questions that require students to demonstrate their understanding:

Do you understand?

What are the considerations to keep in mind when you teach students who are rather

dualistic?

Does everybody see how I got this answer?

Why did I use concept A and not concept Bto resolve this answer?

Get students to make use of imagery to approach questions:

What is a tsunami?

What comes to your mind with the word tsunami?What images do you form after reading the

information about tsunami?

Encourage students to ask questions:

Do you have any questions?

What questions do you have?

Davis, 1993

Recommendations for Setting Questions

• Direct questions to key concepts & complex ideas. Don’t dwell on trivial points.

• Teach students’ Bloom’s taxonomy so that they know how to respond to your different levels of questions.

• A key question to an objective; a few questions to support the key question.

• Give time for students to formulate answers.