Gateway Engineering Education Coalition Questions & Answers or How to keep an open forum…

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition2 Topics How to ask questions How to elicit questions How to answer questions How to recover from questions you can’t answer

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition3 Asking Questions Questions should be formed to give students a framework for what is expected in an answer. Guideline #1:

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition4 Asking Questions “George Bush referred to Ronald Reagan’s economic plan as what economics?” For example…the question below is posed without a sufficient framework:

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition5 Asking Questions Now…that same question posed within a more complete framework: “George Bush felt Reagan’s economic plan was more witchcraft than realistic plan. What name did Bush give to Reagan’s plan?”

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition6 Asking Questions Guideline #2: Give students a chance to answer the questions you pose, especially those you think are “easy”. A good guideline is to wait 10 seconds.

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition7 Asking Questions For example, rather than saying… “What is the voltage across this component?” (slight pause) “We can easily see that it’s five volts.”

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition8 Asking Questions You may want want to try… “What is the voltage across this component?” And then wait for a response…

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition9 Asking Questions If no answer is forthcoming, consider asking… “How could we determine the voltage?” Or even calling on someone directly

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition10 Asking Questions This may also be the time that you ask the students to work with a neighbor to get the answer and then ask the question again. This allows the students to say “We determined the answer was ……” This takes the burden off the individual student.

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition11 Asking Questions Remember… Don’t be afraid of pauses in your lecture when you ask questions. When necessary, call on students but you may want to give them an opportunity to work in pairs or threes to get the response.

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition12 Eliciting Questions When eliciting questions from your class, phrase your requests as though questions are expected. Guideline #3:

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition13 Eliciting Questions For example, if you say… “Are there any questions?” OR “Does anyone have any questions?”

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition14 Eliciting Questions Then… You intimate that you aren’t expecting questions and students will be less likely to speak up.

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition15 Eliciting Questions You may want to rephrase your request to make it clear that questions are expected. For example: “What questions do you have?”

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition16 Answering Questions Guideline #4: Helping students arrive at answers on their own (by way of your prompting) helps them learn and remember better and results in a deeper understanding of the answer.

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition17 Answering Questions Rather than simply replying… “1.5 Volts” For example, if asked… “How many volts is this battery?”

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition18 Answering Questions You might want to suggest… “One way to determine the voltage is to measure it with a voltmeter. In addition, the voltage should be listed on the side of the battery. You can verify the listed voltage against the voltmeter measurement.”

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition19 Lack of Answer Recovery Guideline #5: Since you can’t know the answer to every question, maintain the pace of the class by considering the question and responding in a timely fashion.

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition20 For example, when asked… Lack of Answer Recovery “Why are there no letters on the ‘1’ digit on the phone?” Rather than saying…. “Uhhh… I don’t know. Uhh…. Uhh….”

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition21 Lack of Answer Recovery Try using one of the techniques below: “I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you.” “Let me think about that a moment.” Offer the question to the other students. With good students, you will find that one may have the correct answer which you will recognize.

Gateway Engineering Education Coalition22 Summarizing Frame your questions to better prompt students. Wait for the answer. Don’t be afraid of silence. Consider small groups doing Think-Share- Compare if individuals are not responding. Ask for questions in a manner that makes it clear that questions are expected. Help students reason an answer rather than just handing the answer to them. Don’t freeze when you don’t know an answer to a student question; give a definitive answer even if it’s that you don’t know.