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By:

Dr.G.R.AngadiAsst. Professor & Research Guide,

BLDEA’s JSS College of Education, P.G. Studies & Research Centre in Education, Bijapur-586101 Karnataka (India)

Email-ID: gavimahi@gmail.comURL: http//sites.google.com/site/drgrangadi

The Art of QuestioningAn Essential Skill for Successful Teaching.

The analytical concept of teaching considers teaching as a complex skill comprising various component teaching skills.

Component of teaching skills are a set of interrelated component teaching behaviors for the achievement of specified instructional objectives.

• The research experts in this field have The research experts in this field have identified a number of component-teaching identified a number of component-teaching skills. Among them, skill in questioning skills. Among them, skill in questioning represents an important component. represents an important component.

The art of questioning is the most potent weapon in the educational armory of the teacher. During a lesson, the teacher will have to ask different types of questions, depending on the situation and purpose to be achieved.

The aim of questioning is:◦ To motivate students,◦ To create interest, ◦ To test what the student knows◦ To encourage ◦ To stimulate thinking ◦ To clear ambiguities and doubts.

Questioning can achieve its purposes if the questions are of high quality.

Quality, rather than quantity of questions make the teaching effective. Questioning helps the teacher to understand how far the teaching has

been helpful to the students.

Good questions by their very nature are educative, and they have a very prominent place in all kinds of learning.

The judicious use of questions can be the basis for valuable instructional experiences.

Aggarwal (1995): ‘Questions properly planned, carefully worded, evenly distributed, scientifically asked, honestly answered and intelligently followed up are very profitable and in fact indispensable in the effective teaching-learning process’.

Levin and Nolan (2000): ‘The use of good questioning techniques is a potent means of keeping students actively involved in lessons and thereby minimizing disruptive behavior’

Formation of good question is not an easy task, which can be mastered through conscious and repeated efforts.

The efficiency of instruction is measured to a certain extent by the nature of questions that are asked and the care with which they are framed.

One who questions faultlessly and a good style of questioning or mastery of questioning is the art that every teacher should aspire for.

The overall Questioning Techniques:

State the question clearly and precisely:

* It should not be ambiguous, lengthy,

encourage guesswork and vague.* It should be direct, straightforward

and understandable.* Language should be simple* It should be relevant to the topic

Pause after asking the questions: Address to the entire class. Pause before calling on someone. To understand and think. To formulate the answer. Chance to think all students. It helps to formulate original responses. The length of students responses increased. Failures to respond decreased. Confidence increased. Speculative thinking increased Student to student comparing increased. Higher level thinking responses increased.

Teacher Question

PAUSE(wait time)

3-5 sec.

Student Response

PAUSE3-5 sec

Teacher Reaction

Pause after asking the questions:

Call on students at random: * Desirable to think all students * Call on volunteers * Call on Non-volunteers

After a student answers a question, wait three to five seconds before you respond:* Silence/ waiting time tends to increase

number of students* Increases quality and amount of answer* It increases student-student interaction* It increases the diversity of student

answers

Ask questions at a variety of cognitive levels:

* Proceeds from knowledge and comprehension to application

* Analysis* Synthesis* Evaluation promotes both critical thinking and

better retention of basic information

Distribute questions to a range of students:

* It is better to distribute questions to all students

* On the basis of their IQ’s

Ask follow up or probing questions Ask follow up or probing questions to extend student thinking after to extend student thinking after correct and incorrect responses:correct and incorrect responses:

* Ask Question for clarification* Ask Question for specific examples* Ask for further expansion/ elaboration of an answer* Ask students to relate their answer to previous

answers

* Every question should grow out of the response of the previous one

* Question should be in a sequence/orderly

Provide immediate feedback to Provide immediate feedback to students:students:

*It indicates appropriateness of the students answers

* If the answer is not wholly correct* Cues and hints can be used to help students

answer appropriately* Feedback need not be long/ elaborate* Head nodding, eye brows rising, ahh!, UR right,

yes, very good, good, excellent, wonderful answer, etc.

Treat students with dignity:

* Never humiliate / embarrass a student who gives a wrong answer

* To encourage student participation* Treat students, as you wish to be / want to be

treated.

Classification of Questions:

Introductory/Motivating questions Developing/ Presentation Questions Application Questions Recapitulate Questions Evaluating/ Testing Questions

Based Based on Bloom’s taxonomy of instructional on Bloom’s taxonomy of instructional objectives, questions classified as follows, according objectives, questions classified as follows, according

to the cognitive levels of responses:to the cognitive levels of responses:

Knowledge questionsComprehension/

understanding questionsApplication questionsAnalysis questionsSynthesis questionsEvaluation questions

According to their essential functions questions are classified into the following types:

Lower order questionsMiddle order questionsHigher order questionsOpen-ended questionsConvergent questionsDivergent questionsProbing questions

Presented by:

Dr.G.R.Angadi

Functions of Questioning

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL EDUCATIONAL

•Establish relationship•Integrate groups

•Create healthy climate in the classroom

•Establish suitable levels of motivation

•Elicit information

•Make pupils think

Purpose of QuestionsPurpose of Questions::(Related to stages in the lesson plan)(Related to stages in the lesson plan)

Motivation/Introduction: To establish rapport To motivate To discover what the

class knows & does not know

To create interest To revise previous work To arouse curiosity To pose problems

Developing/ Presentation:

To maintain interest and attention

To develop knowledge step by step

To lead the students To encourage reasoning and

logical thinking To find whether pupils

understand what is going on To clear ambiguities & doubts To focus attention and

important points

Application:To focus and clarify

To stimulate thinking

To clear up difficulties

To lead the pupils to make observations

To draw inferences for themselves

Conclusion:

•To revise the main points of the lesson

•To test the extent of the pupils understanding and assimilation

•To suggest further problems and related issues

Skill of fluency in questioning Introduction: • You all know that questioning is an important skill that a

teacher must learn.

• One of the aspects of this skill is the ‘fluency in

questioning’.

• By fluency in questioning we mean the lots of

meaningful questions put per unit of time.

Now you may be curious to know what do we mean by meaningful which fit in with the issues to be considered under.

Skill of fluency in questioning Components

1) Structure:

It includes grammatical part and content part of the question which when taken together convey the intent of the question maker, various inertia for a well structured question are.

I. Grammatical correctness: It is desirable for the teacher to use grammatically

correct language. If the language used by the teacher is wrong, it will

create confusion in the minds of pupils. They will spend much time in understanding the

questions. For each such question, the teacher and students will

take more time and thus the fluency will decrease. Therefore it is necessary that the teacher should be

careful while framing questions.

GrammaticallyGrammatically

Wrong When did Olympic

Games started?

Where is kittur channamma born?

Who teach you English? Do Mohan go to Delhi?

Right When did Olympic

Games start?

Where was kittur channamma Born?

Who teaches you English?

d) Does Mohan go to Delhi?

II.CONCISENESS:

It refers to the length of questions. A question is said to be concise when it does not have redundant or extra words. A question should be direct and straight forward.

Wrong Right Does any one know when did India get freedom? @ When did India get freedom? Who can tell me the name of the president of India? @ Who is the President of India?

The teacher uses many extra words like, ‘Does any one know’, ‘Who can tell me’; these extra words not give much meaning. Time could have been saved by framing direct questions which are short and to the point. Therefore teacher should ask direct questions.

III. Relevancy:

An irrelevant question is that which is not related to the topic on hand, a question is also irrelevant when it contains terms which are not explained earlier.(Teacher is teaching a lesson ‘Celebrations of Independent day’)

Teacher- When do you celebrate Independence Day in your school? Pupil- We celebrate Independence Day on 15th of August. Teacher- Who elects the President? (Irrelevant question as it does not relate to the ‘Celebrations of Independent day)

Teacher wastes the time unnecessarily framing question which are not to the point.

Therefore as a teacher you should ask the relevant questions, so that the pupils may answer your questions correctly and quickly.

IV. IV. SPEFICITYSPEFICITY : :

Well structured question is that it should be specific. A specific Well structured question is that it should be specific. A specific question calls for clear and requires only one single response, question calls for clear and requires only one single response,

It increases the fluency in questioning.It increases the fluency in questioning.e.g. a) Specific questions:

1)Do you know about mountain? 1) Which is the highest mountain in the world?2)Who discover the country? 2) Who discovered America?

• Here, you might have observed that the answers to the above questions are specific and they require only one correct response. It increases the fluency. On the other hand, If the teacher frames questions which are general in nature, they will take longer time to response.

b) General questions:

What do you know about the reign of king Ashok? Tell me something about the climate of the Tundra region? What were the causes of the First World War?

These Q’s are not clear , what specifically the teacher wants to elicit from his pupils, If the pupils start responding to these questions, it will take much of their time and questioning will not proceed further, If the teacher want to increases the rate of or fluency in questioning he should avoid general questions.

2) PROCESS: The word ‘Process’ implies the way of asking questions.

a). Speed of asking questions:The teacher should speak out questions neither too

hurriedly nor too slowly.The teacher should give brief pause after the

question in order to enable the pupils to understand the question.

e.g. Teacher: How many months are there in a

year? (After a brief pause, he points to Pinky) Pinky: there are twelve months in a year. Teacher: Which is the first month of the year? (The teacher pauses for while)

b).Voice of the teacher:

It should be audible and clear to all the pupils in the class.

The teacher should put questions in a raised voice in order to enable the pupils to hear the teacher even if they are sitting on the last benches.

The question should be put in a pleasant tone and in a friendly manner.

Apart from the issues discussed above, there are certain hints which are to be kept in mind.

Apart from the issues discussed above, there are certain hints which are to be kept in mind.

i). Repetition of questions by the Teacher:Unnecessary repetition of questions by the teacher is an obstacle in the way of fluency for the following reasons:

Confuse the pupils. The pupils may not understand what the teacher expects.

Pupils get into the habit of attending to the question only at the Second time.

Much of the time is wasted in the repetition of the questions. The pupils may, become inattentive and may not give proper response

Repetition of answers given by pupils:

If the teacher generally repeats the answers of the pupils, then the other pupils get conditioned to listen to the teacher only. They do not listen carefully when the earlier pupil is giving the answers.

This results in more talk by the teacher and less participation by the pupils. Hence, it is hindrance in the way of increasing fluency in questioning. Therefore, the teacher should refrain from repetition because it merely wastes time, encourages inattention and decreases fluency in questioning.

e.g. Teacher: Who was called the father of nation? Pupil: Gandhiji was called the father of nation. Teacher: yes, Gandhiji was called the father of

the nation. Teacher: Where was he born? Pupil: He was born at Porbundar. Teacher: Yes, Gandhiji was born at Porbundar.

3) PRODUCT:

The term ‘Product’ refers to the pupils responses. Many a time it happens that nothing is wrong with the structure or the process of questioning. But even then the pupils do not give any response. Several reasons may be given for such a situation.

The pupils may not be intelligent enough to understand the questions put to them, or the questions may be of higher difficulty level.

They may not be interested in the lesson. Due to lack of interest, they may be inattentive in the class.

They may lack in the previous knowledge.There may not be any rapport between the

pupil and the teacher.

OBSERVATION SCHEDULEOBSERVATION SCHEDULESTRUCTURE PROCESS

Questions Grammatical Correctness

Relevancy Conciseness Specificity Speed Voice Q.R. R.R.

12345..n

EXERCISE

What questions can you draw out from the image?

The unexamined life is not worth

–living…

The most important thing is to ask question….