Welcome to UOIT's
Teaching and Learning Centre's teachtorial on effective questioning
using Virtual Clickers, which is TurningPoint and ResponseWare.
This is one screencast in a series of teachtorials designed to
help you use TurningPoint in your classroom by demonstrating how you can create
interactive PowerPoint slides to poll your students.
Designing questions for your students, whether you use Virtual Clickers or not,
is not an easy task. There are many pedagogically sound practices
that will help you engage your students while in class. You will be able to
start meaningful discussions, focus your students' attention on the topic
at hand, find out what your students have retained,
create new learning, stimulate higher order thinking, foster critical
thinking and, most importantly, know that you have met your learning outcomes.
Use questions to stimulate discussion
If you want to ensure that you have full classroom participation,
try using random name card selection. You can also roll dice
to determine who should answer the question. Be sure to give your students
time to think out their answer. Ask questions that require
facts about an issue. The distribution of answers will give you insight
into whether your students have grasped the broader concepts.
So what level of knowledge exists within your class?
Put your students into groups and create a competition between the groups.
By collaborating on the answer, members of the group will garner a deeper understanding.
There are times when you simply
want to know if the class has grasped a single concept. By asking
directed questions, you can examine the distribution of answers to
know whether you can move forward with the next concept or whether you need to spend more
time on the current topic.
An excellent method of creating a discussion within the class is to ask opinion
questions. Be prepared in advance as to what some of the
opinions might be so that you know how to direct the conversation that ensues.
When introducing a new topic or concept
ask an ice breaker or a transfer in question.
An ice breaker question is not directly related to the topic
but it puts the group in a collaborative frame of mind.
A transfer in question is directly related to the topic and can
provide an excellent introduction to a concept.
Sometimes you just want to find out information about your class
Students can also learn something about their classmates.
As a rule of thumb,
at least 10-15 minutes of a 50 minute class
should be devoted to effective questioning. This allows for
active learning to take place in the classroom. Research literature
has shown that students need to be involved in their own learning - they need to read
write, listen, work in groups as well as relate the
learning to their experiences and apply it to their own life.
You could prompt active learning by incorporating effective questioning into your
classtime. In 1956,
Benjamin Bloom created his taxonomy of levels of learning
starting from lower order thinking skills through to higher order thinking
skills. His taxonomy of
knowledge to comprehension to application
to analysis to synthesis and to evaluation
has been reclassified as of 2001
to use verbs that define the 6 levels. Each level should
be carefully considered as you create questions that you will ask your class.
Do you want them to remember, understand,
apply, analyze, evaluate or create?
If you want your class to simply recall facts, your question
should be phrased at the Remember level of the taxonomy.
Active verbs such as list, name, identify, define
show, label, match, tell, etc. should drive
your questions. Multiple choice
questioning lends itself well to this level of learning.
To move the level of learning
up one level to understanding,
you can use verbs such as summarize, associate, describe
discuss, list, identify, distinguish,
differentiate, report, conclude to drive your questions.
At this level, students are able
to rephrase concepts into their own words.
Once the concepts are recalled and understood,
you can move your questioning to the level of apply.
Questions of this type could be seen at the first year of an undergraduate course.
using verbs such as demonstrate, examine, apply,
choose, complete, modify, experiment, relate,
and calculate. Students should be able
to take new, learned information and apply it to situations,
calculations and scenarios.
As you move into the realm of higher order thinking
skills, your questions start to build into more complex entities.
You could start to incorporate multiple choice questions
designed to analyze a situation or scenario.
Verbs like compare, arrange, order, separate,
explain, characterize, contrast, distinguish,
outline, classify - these all represent learning at this level.
You would expect your students to be able to break information
into smaller pieces to see how it all fits together.
At the evaluate level, students begin to pull information from different sources
together, in order to form an opinion or make a recommendation.
Opinion questions lend themselves to this level of learning.
Rich discussion can take place in the classroom by virtue
of a well-placed opinion question.
Use verbs such as compare, judge, plan, compose,
construct, develop, combine, recommend,
to drive your questions.
At the highest level of thinking, students create new learning
by pulling together information from different places. Your questions
need to elicit opinions and move from abstract to concrete
concepts. Driving questions would start with verbs
like invent, design, prepare, assess,
decide, measure, convince, select,
support, conclude, appraise, argue, predict,
and create.
A technique of good questioning is called scaffolding.
By starting questions at a lower order of thinking skills
and building to a higher order, you can move students through the learning curve
of a concept or information. Of course, you also get feedback
on how many have grasped the concept by evaluating the distribution
of answers you receive. Consider assigning
a reading ahead of class and asking questions to guide the discussion
of the reading. By asking for anonymous feedback, you can
generate participation from those who might be hesitant to be vocal in class.
You can also avoid the few students in your class who are always
willing to answer questions and who sometimes monopolize the discussion.
Try asking a question at the beginning of
a class, show the results to the class and then have small groups
discuss the answers. Once the discussion is over, ask
the question again to see the deeper level of understanding.
There are many websites that you can go
to for more help on virtual clickers
or on effective questioning. These are just some of them.
Some of the references that have been used
for this particular presentation. This concludes
our teachtorial on effective questioning with TurningPoint and ResponseWare.
Thank you for viewing.