What does a research based classroom look like? That is the question that I am going to try to answer over the course of this project. The initial blog is going to explore the use of questioning in the classroom. An article located at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/wc084 discusses many aspects of questioning. The area that I want to focus on is using guided questions to help lead the students to discover the answer.
I want to use a card trick to demonstrate how this is done. Card tricks in print are not always easy to understand so if it is not clear, please post a response and I can look into making a video and posting it. The leader is the person holding the deck of cards and shuffling them. The audience member will be using their "untapped" magic powers to discover the card that was selected.
Leader: One card has been selected and I am looking at it right now (it is the Jack of Spades). I will set it face down on the table and I want you to stare at it for 10 seconds and try to use you magic powers to see through the card. (Wait ten seconds.) Now a deck of cards has 26 red cards and 26 black cards. Say red or black.
Audience Member: Red.
Leader: That leaves black. The black cards are divided into two suits, spades and clubs. Say spades or clubs.
Audience Member: Spades.
Leader: OK spades. The spades contain number cards, 2 through 10, and face cards, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. Say number cards or face cards.
Audience Member: Number cards.
Leader: That leaves face cards. The face cards are Jack and Queen and King and Ace. Say Jack and Queen or King and Ace.
Audience Member: Jack and Queen.
Leader: That leaves us with Jack and Queen. Say Jack or Queen.
Audience Member: Queen.
Leader: That leaves us with the Jack of Spades. (Reveal the card.) You do have magical abilities!
In that example the leader knew the card and knew how to lead the audience member to the card. Notice the words were carefully choosen - the leader did not say pick or choose or which one do you want - rather the leader had them say one of the choices. Based on what the audience member said, the leader choose which cards to keep and which to take away. I have done this trick on my kids, as well as my friends, and the initial response is confusion. They are focused on the material (making choices on the cards) and not on how their choice impacts which cards remain. A similar experience can happen in the classroom when the students are engaged in the discussion and in the content. They might not notice how the teacher is using what they are saying to guide the class discussion where it needs to go.
In the article by James E. Dyer that I posted above, he discusses how to respond to student answers. The five ways Dyer discusses are: reinforcement, probe, adjust/refocus, redirect, and rephrase and they are defined in Dyer's article. One note that Dyer left out that I feel is important is that anytime you change the question, ask the student if the change you made still is the same answer that they wanted to give. Dyer does not address the use of guided questioning in the classroom but gives general tips for effective questioning. These tips for general questioning would still apply to guided questioning.
That is all that I have on the use of guided questioning for blog 1. I plan to discuss an inquiry based approach to Science in blog 2 and I will continue to discuss the use of guided questioning.
Resource: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/wc084
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