Question-Asking as an Instructional Technique

Annotations:

• 5.5. Designing Questions Toward Thinking and Understanding Rather Than Answers. By Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L. Beck

1. Q-A is a processing component for: comprehension, problem solving and other cognitive abilities
   1. Goal is to increase student comprehension with text interaction
2. Studies show mixed results: that asking questions can improve students' learning of text material
   1. Why?
      1. What do Questions in the classrooms look like?
         1. Typically they follow the IRE pattern: teacher INITIATES a question, the student RESPONDS, usually briefly and the teacher EVALUATES - and then goes on to ask another - maybe related, maybe not question
            1. This type of question is restricted: students rely on recall and will frequently get the answer right
               1. WHAT IS A GOOD QUESTION?
                  1. Not know the answer immediately
                  2. Need to think about question
                     1. Leave room for students to build their own meaning
                        1. Result is a cognitive turmoil that allows students to struggle with ideas and thinking
                     2. ENGAGING STUDENTS WITH OPEN QUESTIONS
                        1. What 's the author's message?
                        2. QUESTIONING THE AUTHOR (QtA) an instructional approach - open queries
                           1. Answers become less literal and more thoughtful, meaningful
                           2. Students response to Open Questions
                              1. Teacher must follow-up and re-voice student response to stimulate ideas, & build meaning for further discussion
                                 1. For questions to be effective, they must be organized and sequential
                                    1. Story Map - best guide to promote comprehension: unified, mental representation of a story based on logical organization of central story events, ideas and their interrelationships.
                                    2. Knowing where you are going
                                       1. Target key ideas & the connections between ideas
                              2. Prompt student thinking
                              3. Direct toward goal of building meaning
                        3. What's this about?
                        4. What's going on? What are they up to?
                        5. How does this connect with what we know?
                  3. help students build understanding of what they don't know
                     1. helps reveal what students know
               2. Teacher poses question that can be answered, by recall and does not promote understanding or a thoughtful comprehension process