Teacher questioning in science classrooms: Approaches that stimulate productive thinking

Chin, Cheng Siong

doi:10.1002/tea.20171

Cited by 399 publications

(381 citation statements)

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“…4 Poor questions can stifle learning by creating confusion, intimidating students, and limiting creative thinking. 5 Effective questions asked in a psychologically safe learning environment support student learning by probing for understanding, encouraging creativity, stimulating critical thinking, and enhancing confidence. 6 The art of asking the right questions at the appropriate time is not innate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Best Practice Strategies for Effective Use of Questions as a Teaching Tool

Tofade

Elsner

Haines

2013

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education

218

207

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Questions have long been used as a teaching tool by teachers and preceptors to assess students' knowledge, promote comprehension, and stimulate critical thinking. Well-crafted questions lead to new insights, generate discussion, and promote the comprehensive exploration of subject matter. Poorly constructed questions can stifle learning by creating confusion, intimidating students, and limiting creative thinking. Teachers most often ask lower-order, convergent questions that rely on students' factual recall of prior knowledge rather than asking higher-order, divergent questions that promote deep thinking, requiring students to analyze and evaluate concepts. This review summarizes the taxonomy of questions, provides strategies for formulating effective questions, and explores practical considerations to enhance student engagement and promote critical thinking. These concepts can be applied in the classroom and in experiential learning environments.Keywords: questioning, critical thinking, pedagogy, effective teaching, teaching tool INTRODUCTIONUsing questions to teach is an age-old practice and has been a cornerstone of education for centuries. 1,2 Questions are often used to stimulate the recall of prior knowledge, promote comprehension, and build critical-thinking skills. Teachers ask questions to help students uncover what has been learned, to comprehensively explore the subject matter, and to generate discussion and peerto-peer interaction. Student-initiated questions increase higher-order learning by requiring them to analyze information, connect seemingly disparate concepts, and articulate their thoughts. 3 Indeed, questions are ubiquitous, but are the right kinds of questions -ones that promote learning, not recall -asked at the appropriate time? 4 Poor questions can stifle learning by creating confusion, intimidating students, and limiting creative thinking. 5 Effective questions asked in a psychologically safe learning environment support student learning by probing for understanding, encouraging creativity, stimulating critical thinking, and enhancing confidence. 6 The art of asking the right questions at the appropriate time is not innate. 7 Bloom's taxonomy of learning categorizes cognitive levels into several domains. 8 Questions that elicit responses in the knowledge, comprehension, and application domains are frequently considered lower-order questions, while questions in the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation domains are considered higherorder questions. 9 Higher-order questions elicit deeper and critical thinking; therefore, teachers are encouraged to ask questions in these domains (Table 1). 2,[10][11][12] This does not mean that lower-order questions should not be asked. It is appropriate to ask questions to address all cognitive domains as long as the desired learning outcome is kept in mind and a good mix of questions is used during each teaching session. 2 Given that the learning objectives in most courses in graduate and professional degree programs are often intended to stimulate high ord...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Best Practice Strategies for Effective Use of Questions as a Teaching Tool

Tofade

Elsner

Haines

2013

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education

218

207

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Nevertheless, elements of dialogic teaching, such as questioning to stimulate and extend pupils' thinking (Chin, 2007) and elaborating on pupil responses, have been reported as valuable motivational factors in science education. When pupils have opportunities to present and challenge their pre-existing views against the scientific view, pupils can more easily see the lack in their understandings and are more willing to adopt new insights (Posner, Strike, Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing Dialogic Teaching to Science Student Teachers

Lehesvuori¹,

Viiri²,

Rasku‐Puttonen³

2011

Journal of Science Teacher Education

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It is commonly believed that science teachers rely on language that allows only minor flexibility when it comes to taking into account contrasting views and pupil thoughts. Too frequently science teachers either pose questions that target predefined answers or simply lecture through lessons, a major concern from a sociocultural perspective. This study reports the experiences of science student teachers when introduced to the Communicative Approach to science education drawing on dialogic teacher-talk in addition to authoritative teacher-talk. This approach was introduced to the students in an interventional teaching program running parallel to the student teachers' field practice. The practical implications of this approach during initial teacher education are the central focus of this study. The data consisting of videos of lessons and interviews indicate that the student teacher awareness of teacher-talk and alternative communicative options did increase. Student teachers reported greater awareness of the different functions of teacher-talk as well as the challenges when trying to implement dialogic teaching.

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“…In order to achieve better learning results and higherquality discussions and to improve and develop group dynamics, the instructor worked with the same group throughout the course [13]. This way the instructor could leisurely focus on teaching one laboratory experiment at a time (compared with the old course structure) which also increased students' time to process each analytical phenomenon.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%