The readings for this week really made me think about the
importance of the way that the teacher scaffolds and asks questions. The questions that are asked of the
class before, during, and after lessons can truly make or break the students’
understanding and appreciation of what they have been taught. It is easy for teachers to just stick
to the “basic” questions during instruction, not attempting to push student
thinking above and beyond. As
discussed in the Thinking Through A Lesson article, if teachers take time
during planning to actually stop and think about what the main goals of each
lesson are, they can come up with a list of questions to bring up that can give
children a more complex grasp on the material. Asking students to provide detailed answers and reasoning
for the way they are solving problems (both in math and in other subjects) will
allow the teacher to get a sense of whether their students are really
understanding the main objectives or are just skating by on the bare minimum.
This idea of scaffolding questions was further explored in Eggleton’s
article about The Value of Mistakes.
Taking one student’s mistakes or misunderstandings and shaping them into
a learning experience for the entire class is a great way to encourage students
to take their thinking to a more critical level. Instead of simply telling a student that their reasoning is
incorrect, teachers can instead pose questions to the rest of the class about the
topic. By challenging the students
in the article to both defend their own positions and determine the correctness
of their peers in the “least to greatest” line, the teacher was able to let the
students work through the math concepts on their own rather than explicitly
telling them that they were in the right or wrong spot. Additionally, asking them questions
like “why is Michael so far from the rest of the group?” forced the students to
access their previous knowledge of place values and ordering to explain why the
number 4000 was so far away from decimals like .04. I believe that if more teachers were willing to take the
time to think about what questions might arise before actually carrying
out their lessons and coming up with alternate questions to ask to challenge
students to come up with answers on their own, children would be able to get a
lot more value out of math instruction.
Emily made some really strong arguments about the questions that teachers ask before, during and after the lesson and I completely agree with her. I think the questions that are asked before a lesson are more of a way to establish background knowledge and get the students minds on the right track...it really sets up a clear basis for the lesson and allows the teacher to see where the students are coming from. The questions during the lesson should allow for the teacher to make sure the lesson is running smoothly and the students are understanding and it gives the students who are confused a chance to think more critically about what they are learning. Questions after lessons lean more towards clarification and may act as informal assessments for the teacher in some cases. Overall, I think questions are a vital part in every lesson and the teacher definitely needs to take the time to think about what type of questions they will be asking throughout the lesson.
ReplyDeleteAs for the way of handling students who get confused or answer incorrectly, I also agree that the teacher should not just say "no that's not right" but instead have a class discussion about why it was incorrect or how it could be fixed. I think this is very beneficial because a lot of other students may have similar misconceptions and it will help them to clarify the answer as well. It also helps when students are helping other students...sometimes it is easier to understand something from someone their own age.
I also agree that the way “questioning” is incorporated into a lesson can transform the way students’ understand the material. While I have not yet planned a math lesson, I really believe a lesson should be “pre-planned” as to anticipate what types of questions will be asked by students as well as what types of questions the teacher will use to scaffold understanding. This process is definitely something that will become easier with experience, but all teachers should be pushing themselves to engage with questions and discussions further.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most important aspect of integrating scaffolded questions into a lesson is through student misunderstanding. Mistakes and misunderstanding should never be disregarded or looked down upon. Instead, in all reality, mistakes and misunderstanding can be looked at as a sort of “gem” in a lesson as it allows the teacher to engage the students in determining how or why a mistake is occurring, pushing students to question their own understanding further. If you can’t understand why something is wrong, do you really understand why it’s right? In my opinion, no. Which is why I feel strongly about the notion of question based discussion surrounding misunderstandings.