5 Powerful Questions Teachers Can Ask Students by Rebecca Alber with Edutopia

Whether you are a new teacher or experienced teacher, we often times fall victim to the dreaded process of asking AND answering your own questions.  I find this happens most when I “over plan”, run out of time in class, ask questions, but forget to provide students with ample time to answer.  As discussed in our Educational Psychology class, there is a period of time, called “wait time” that we must wait after asking questions to allow students the opportunity to retrieve or recall information.    Rebecca Alber, writer for Edutopia, brings up a good point, “for an inquiry to be alive and well in a classroom that, amongst other things, the teacher needs to be expert at asking strategic questions not only asking well-designed ones, but ones that will also lead students to questions of their own.” (Alber) Alber suggests that educators keep questions simple and offers five questions as a guide.  What a great idea! 

Ask:

“#1.  What do you think?

#2.  Why do you think that?

#3.  How do you know this?

#4. Can you tell me more?

#5. What questions do you still have?” (Alber)

These series of questions progresses students from a basic questioning of recall to higher level thinking.  Students will use their factual knowledge to connect to existing schema, understand through reasoning, and reflect through a basic self-assessment.  Another great suggestion by Alber is “to help students feel more comfortable and confident with answering questions and asking ones of their own, you can use this scaffold:  Ask a question, pause, and then invite students to ‘turn and talk’ with a neighbor first before sharing out with the whole group.”  (Alber) One would hope this would ease the nerves of presenting in front of the class. 

Alber, Rebecca. "5 Powerful Questions Teachers Can Ask Students." Edutopia. The George Lucas Educational Foundation, 31 Oct 2013. Web. 1 Nov. 2013. <http://www.edutopia.org/blog/five-powerful-questions-teachers-ask-students-rebecca-alber>.