Addendum: Asking questions
Start to Teach
Start to Teach Addendum: Asking questions
Why should you ask questions?
• Stimulate your students to think critically and thoroughly about what they are learning.
• Keep your students alert and engage them in class.
• Do your students have prior knowledge or misconceptions of a certain topic, or
could they be prejudiced?
• Have your students understood what you are teaching and can they keep up with
the pace and level of the class?
Types of questions
The types of questions you ask depend on what you are trying to achieve.
Type of question Possible goals
Questions concerning knowledge …
or reproduction …
o Explain the concept of ... in your own o Gauging (prior) knowledge
words. o Checking whether students have
o Which formula do we use to calculate ...? memorised the subject matter
o Which of the following elements form the o Checking whether students can
base of ...? rephrase the subject matter (in
o What does ... mean? their own words)
…
Questions concerning application
o Gauging subject matter
o Which theory illustrates the following understanding
case? o Gauging misconceptions
o How can we best solve problem X? o Checking whether students
o Which method is most suitable to can solve new problems based
deal with problem X? on a law, a formula or a
solving/solution principle
…
Questions concerning evaluation …
o What do you think of the way ...? o Starting discussions
o Do you think measure X is an o Teaching students to state
adequate response to problem Y? judgments and to base them
on solid arguments
Addendum: Asking questions
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o Do you think X leads to more Y? o Teaching students to judge a
Why? piece of information's worth
and trustworthiness
…
Questions concerning deeper understanding
o Gauging misconceptions
o Which factors influence ...? o Sparking discussions
o What did X mean when he said '...'? o Practising critical and independent
o Compare X to Y concerning ... thought
o Explain how X contributed to ... o Learning to analyse and reorganise
problems
…
Rhetorical questions
o Sparking interest
o Which smoker has never tried to quit?
o Introducing a theme
Questions of all these categories can be asked in a multiple choice format and/or in an
online (anonymous) poll.
How to ask questions?
Preparation
It may be useful to decide in advance which questions you will be asking in class:
• What is the purpose of my questions? What do I want to achieve with my students?
How are they linked to my course unit’s learning goals?
• When do I ask questions? How often? At which moments in class?
• How do I formulate them?
• Which answers might come up? How will I react to them?
A good question
A good question’s level is adapted to your audience, i.c. your student group. It is important
to know your students’ prior knowledge, and to act accordingly.
If you are asking closed questions, they may not be challenging enough. Open questions can
possibly have a paralysing effect. An example:
• ‘Does the mediatisation of politics affect the construction of politicians' personal
images?’ is not a very challenging question, because the only possible answers are
'yes' or 'no'.
• ‘What are the consequences of the mediatisation of politics?’ is so open students
might get discouraged.
Addendum: Asking questions
Start to Teach
• A better question to ask (if students have enough prior knowledge) is 'How does the
mediatisation of politics contribute to the construction of politicians' personal
images?’
Do not let students just answer the question: also ask them to explain their reasoning behind
their answer. Students learn a lot from your and other students' reasoning. Some of them
will have to get used to the fact that complex questions don't always have just one correct
answer. You can make them aware of that fact by explicitly showing and illustrating this
ambiguity.
Lowering the threshold
“I do try to ask questions from time to time, but only a limited number of students answer
them. All the others remain passive. I even wonder if the other students think along."
This is a concern many teachers have. Students often feel shy to formulate an answer or an
opinion in front of a big group and/or a teacher. It is important to lower the threshold. There
are several ways to do this:
• Emphasise the fact that students are allowed to make mistakes.
• Continue your class using your students' input, even if they didn't give you the
complete or correct answer. For example, you can write key words from their answers
on the blackboard and further structurise these answers or ask more questions about
them.
• Give your students enough time to think about a question.
• You can let them discuss with fellow students in short peer discussion moments. A
dialogue with fellow students teaches them that their peers don't always know the
answers too and that making mistakes is normal. An additional benefit is that students
answer as a team or a duo and not in their own names. This reduces the stress to
speak up in front of an audience.
• You can work with multiple choice questions and allow the students
to vote (anonymously). Carefully constructed multiple choice questions are very
adequate to gauge for deeper understanding or application. The advantage of this
method is that students can give an answer and yet remain anonymous. By asking the
question to the entire group and not to an individual, you emphasise your expectation
that everyone will think about the question and formulate an answer for themselves.
• Also rhetorical questions can heighten attention.
• Walk around when you ask questions or when you have an 'educational learning
dialogue’ with your students.
Addendum: Asking questions
Start to Teach
Putting the ball back in their court
Redirect both right and wrong answers back to the group and stimulate students to interact
directly with each other. Try not to repeat students' answers (unless their fellow students
haven't understood them), so that communication doesn't have to pass through you.
The educational learning dialogue
Often, your questions are part of an educational learning dialogue. With this teaching method,
you bring students to certain insights or to the solution of a problem, step by step, by asking
questions.This method is also called the Socratic Method.
Take your time
Asking questions about a topic takes more time than lecturing about it. You may consider to
teach less subject matter or to let students study a part of the material at home in which case
you're not using your class to systematically convey information but rather to guide students
through the material (showing connections and focus on the main ideas instead of details)
and to deepen their understanding of it.
Allowing students to come up with and formulate their own answers is never a waste of time,
it actively engages them with the subject matter.
Do you want to learn more?
University of Waterloo, Centre for Teaching Excellence, types of questions and question
strategies: Practical tips for starting a question conversation with students.
