Questions

There is an old adage, "The only stupid question is the one left unasked". While I do agree that no question is particularly stupid, I do believe that some questions serve a more meaningful purpose than others. Developing, organizing, and asking students questions will be at the very core of an effective teacher’s lesson. Classrooms in which students do not feel that they are encouraged to ask or answer questions, will offer students little or no chance to deeper understand material. Even if higher order thinking questions are not being asked during lectures, questions will still remain a central component of any classroom’s evolution in a number of ways. For example, teachers will ask questions before teaching a lesson that prompt students to make predictions or connect new ideas to their existing knowledge, and afterward teachers may use test questions to assess students’ understanding. We teachers use questions everyday in the classroom with the intention of examining students’ understanding, recollection, and interest.

In making use of an assortment of text-based reading strategies, teachers will ask a variety of higher order thinking questions that will increase student participation and better develop their thinking skills. In the text it noted that a student’s ability to respond to a test question is not based solely on what the student knows about the information at that given time, but the student must also be able to bring into play a variety of skills in order to respond as it should be. For example, in a short answer test question, students must be able to summarize and identify the main points of a topic, all while showing understanding of the overall theme. Short answer questions are great, but if a student is not skilled at organizing and analyzing information, due to not having enough experience practicing in this activity in the classroom, they are less likely to record information effectively on an exam. Teachers ought to allow their students the time to practice essential skills such as these. Furthermore, teachers must give students more than enough time to respond to questions, and then be prepared to respond in any case.Questions should be asked frequently throughout every lesson to keep students’ attention and make learning the active process that it truly is.

 

While there ought to be many questions posed during a lesson, students should not be asked more than one question at a time, so as not to confuse and discourage them. Aside from merely asking questions with the purpose of assessing and promoting learning, teachers have got to enthusiastically use questions to motivate students towards learning in the first place. For instance, a personal question such as, “What do you think about the idea that your classmate just presented?” will persuade students to develop an individual standpoint, as well as promote a class discussion. Teachers should carefully develop meaningful, significant, interesting, individual, and challenging (but not too challenging) questions that will be asked during each lesson to arouse students’ involvement in learning and pose problems for them to consider. Regardless of the type of questions, teachers can rest assure that when students are being probed, they will ultimately understand information better and think more confidently and independently.

Getting It Down

In Chapter 7, Getting It Down: Making and Taking Notes Across the Curriculum, the introductory paragraph began by posing a very important question to their readers; Why teach student how to take notes? This truly set the tone for the chapter, which was full of note-taking activities that teachers could use in their classrooms, and the endless number of benefits for having students acquire note taking skills. The author continued on by defining the differences in note taking and note making. While note taking allows students to record important parts of a classroom lecture, note making is a process in which students use printed material to take notes. Both methods encourage students to organize information and pay attention. However, when students are asked to write as the teacher speaks, they are not given the opportunity to look back for missed information after the lecture is over. Whereas, when students use printed material to record information they have an ample amount of time to reread the text. I appreciate that students taking notes during a lecture are required to pay close attention and decipher what is most important or related to take good notes, but I am unimpressed that students are likely to miss information if not queued properly or informed of information in an organized and timely manner.

I personally have been the victim of teachers who spoke to fast, without allowing enough time for the class to write the information down in their notes. But in knowing this, I want students to be prepared when they encounter such seemingly impossible situations and know how to abbreviate, leave adequate space between their ideas, and be selective. While reading about the various ways used to teach students effective note taking practices, I found that Mr. Herrera’s strategy for teaching dictoglos seemed to be one of the most fun activities listed in the chapter. He chose to read rap lyrics to the class and test the students’ ability to record information quickly and accurately. Having the class engage in this type of activity allows them to practice taking notes in a motivational, yet beneficial manner, that will encourage them to block out background noise and focus on the most important phrases in the reading. It was mentioned repeatedly in the chapter that some teachers believe students should “just know” how to take notes effectively. This must be true, considering the fact that I cannot recall one formal note taking lesson in my entire school career.

To be completely honest, until our most recent class meeting, I gave little thought to my personal note taking practices. However, I found many of the note taking procedures listed in this section all too familiar. Skipping lines was one of the procedures that I find most difficult during lectures. Teachers will often skip around when lecturing, which causes notes that I am taking to become unorganized, which bugs me to the highest degree. I find it highly distracting when there are too many spaces between topics in my notes, yet it’s equally annoying when there is too much information squeezed into a tiny amount of space. For this reason alone, I vow to stay as organized as possible when lecturing, so that students may record information in a logical manner. In the concluding paragraph of the chapter, they stated that “teachers in secondary schools” should implement note taking lessons into their curriculum and give feedback to their students about their notes. I disagree with their suggestion, and firmly believe that note taking skills should be introduced to students while they are still in much earlier primary grades. There is no reason for teachers to not do this. After all, there are many reading strategies that can be used to teach note taking skills to students early on, such as the KWL and DRTA that can be easily used to show students the note taking process. I am looking forward to discussing these and many other ways to teach students valuable note taking skills.