"An open-ended question is designed to encourage a full, meaningful answer using the subject's own knowledge and/or feelings" (Media College). That is the main thing I have learned from my readings. In these readings, many ways on how to ask questions and keep getting answers are presented. In one video, Questioning Styles and Strategies, a man goes over many different ways to keep questions going such and random calling of names for answers, prodding, and asking who agrees with something someone says. All of these articles stress the importance of asking the right questions.
We ask hundreds of questions everyday, and will ask five times that when we become teachers. It will be our job to get answers, to get the information out of the students so you know that you've taught them something. There are so many different ways to do this, we just have to utilize those ways to produce the answers we want. First, we have to give them the knowledge. Questions can't be answered on knowledge that has never been learned. It has to come from somewhere, something we will have had to instructed to them. Questions need to be asked in specific ways.
In the classroom setting, it's always a good idea to make notes in your lesson plan of when to ask questions, and if you take it a step further, write down possible questions you could ask, making sure to never ask more than one question at a time. More than one question could throw the focus, or cause not all parts of the question to be answered. Another thing to remember would be to make sure that test questions are asked in the open ended format as well. A yes or no question could easily be answered with a yes or a no, and no explanation would be given because it was not asked of them to give one.
While there is no wrong way to ask a question, there is also no guarantee the questions will be answered the ways you want them to be unless you ask them in a way that requires a full answer including everything you asked. The best way to do that is to utilize the different ways of asking open-ended questions to get the best and most fulfilling answer.
Sources:
http://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/interviews/open-ended-questions.html
We ask hundreds of questions everyday, and will ask five times that when we become teachers. It will be our job to get answers, to get the information out of the students so you know that you've taught them something. There are so many different ways to do this, we just have to utilize those ways to produce the answers we want. First, we have to give them the knowledge. Questions can't be answered on knowledge that has never been learned. It has to come from somewhere, something we will have had to instructed to them. Questions need to be asked in specific ways.
In the classroom setting, it's always a good idea to make notes in your lesson plan of when to ask questions, and if you take it a step further, write down possible questions you could ask, making sure to never ask more than one question at a time. More than one question could throw the focus, or cause not all parts of the question to be answered. Another thing to remember would be to make sure that test questions are asked in the open ended format as well. A yes or no question could easily be answered with a yes or a no, and no explanation would be given because it was not asked of them to give one.
While there is no wrong way to ask a question, there is also no guarantee the questions will be answered the ways you want them to be unless you ask them in a way that requires a full answer including everything you asked. The best way to do that is to utilize the different ways of asking open-ended questions to get the best and most fulfilling answer.
Sources:
http://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/interviews/open-ended-questions.html
Hey Kirstin!
ReplyDeleteI like your post, however I think you need to check the font size because it fades from normal size to extremely small and it made it hard to read. I agree that questions need to be specific and that teachers should make notes before going into a lesson!
Include links to the videos and/or resources you are referring to.
ReplyDelete