Deeper Learning through Questioning
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”
Socrates
As a project support tutor, my aim is to deepen understanding via questioning. In one of my cohorts, more than 50% of the students have English as their second language. Given the opportunity, they will be happier for me to do all the talking. I learnt to change my style of questioning to encourage interaction and facilitate learning. I started to employ display questions and referential questions methods of explorations for different types of body of work. What I mean by that is the display questions allow me to know what they already know about the project brief for example. Whereas referential questions I use once I feel they have grasped the content and can experiment with an idea forming.
Through further reading and researching I came to gather the right types of questions to gather a deeper understanding for my students. I use two types of questioning – open-process and closed. The former encourages discussion and critical thinking and the latter allows me to gather factual information about their vision for their projects. According to Blooms’, ‘higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, open or high order questions promote deep understanding that can be accompanied with few closed questions.
I am currently experimenting with Hargies’ (2004) two methods of questioning ‘funnel sequencing’ useful as they allow me to address broader issues in an open way before gradually addressing where all it stems from. Also, I am finding this method allows much more dynamic participation from the students.
Socrates (470–399 BC), is considered the grandfather of critical thinking skills. He introduced the idea of teaching by not providing answers but instead, teaching by asking questions.
References
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Lederman, N.G., Zeidler, D.L. and Lederman, J.S. (2023). Handbook of Research on Science Education. New York: Routledge. doi:https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367855758. [Accessed 12 Feb. 2023].
Maftoon, P., & Rezaie, G. (2013). Investigating Classroom Discourse: A Case Study of an Iranian Communicative EFL Classroom. Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistics (IJAL), 16, 107-128. www.scirp.org. (n.d.). SCIRP Open Access. [online] Available at: https://www.scirp.org/(S(lz5mqp453ed%20snp55rrgjct55))/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=1710298 [Accessed 12 Feb. 2023].
Roth, W.-M. (1996). Teacher questioning in an open-inquiry learning environment: Interactions of context, content, and student responses. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 33(7), pp.709–736. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1098-2736(199609)33:7%3C709::aid-tea2%3E3.0.co;2-r. [Accessed 10 Feb. 2023].