Importance Of Asking Questions In Class
Is it important to ask students questions in class?
Yes, very much so! A teacher needs to make the class interesting and interactive or the class will soon lead to monotony or ennui! A student can easily read the content in the textbook and doesn’t really need a teacher to read it out for him. Teachers at Delhi School of Excellence, the top CBSE school in Hyderabad are well qualified and experienced and understand the teaching-learning nuances that we implement at Delhi School of Excellence.
Moreover when the teacher asks questions, she is also helping the students develop their communicative abilities. The 5 Ws and the 1H questions rouse curiosity in the child’s mind and stimulate him to think. So, when the teacher employs the ‘lecture’ or the ‘talk and chalk’ method, she is destroying and curbing the innate curiosity in the mind of the child. Questioning as a technique should be encouraged all through the schooling years of a child. When students are allowed to ask questions relevant to the lesson, they are actually disseminating the information received and classifying it in compartments. Their perception of the lesson or concept being taught becomes very clear. The teacher, at this juncture, is actually only providing them the required scaffolding to write out a clear answer. You can rest assured that at Delhi School of Excellence, students of all levels are extremely familiar with the 5Ws and the 1H starter questions. They also know well that teachers will not accept a ‘No’ from them!
Questioning adopted as a technique by the teacher can easily and clearly enable her to find out if the students have understood the lesson. The teacher can also test recap and retention by students, through questioning. The correct kind of questions can ensure that the focus of the class is on the lesson being taught. If the class gets noisy due to students becoming excited and wishing to answer, the teacher could be courteously firm while dealing with the students and strategies could be adopted to ensure that there is discipline in class.
Questioning at every age and level of learning is important. At the primary segment of education, the strategy could serve as reinforcement and repetition which is very important for young learners. Framing questions and answering them correctly in the lower classes leads to the ability of being able to frame and find answers to HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) questions in the higher classes. This could become a life-long practice with students and will stand them in good stead all their lives. So, learning at Delhi School of Excellence is not short-term but learning for life!
Aren’t teachers meant to teach? Are students permitted to ask questions of the teachers, regarding the lesson being taught? When should the teacher ask questions of the students? Is it during the introduction of the lesson, during the course of the explanation of the lesson? or should it be during the recapitulation of the lesson or the concept taught?
Inquisition-based learning is a valuable trait that teachers at all levels should inculcate amongst their students.. Be it in learning to satisfy their innate habit of curiosity, or a smart inquiry, either can serve as encouragement to students. ‘Just as plants need sunshine, water, soil and nutrients to grow and sustain themselves, students should be encouraged to observe, articulate, analyse and ask questions to learn the concepts clearly and completely. This will ensure that we ease the process of our children learning how to conduct themselves not just in life in general but also in their basic, day-to-day conversations in particular.’
If students are not allowed to ask relevant questions and the class is conducted in silence, it could quite well mean two things, one the possibility that the teacher has made the class so interesting that she has captured the undivided attention of all the students or secondly, the class is so monotonous that the students have lost all interest in the lesson. It is ironical but true that even in the face of such an eventuality, the teacher would have to resort to questioning to confirm which of the two of the above stated possibilities is true! This probably explains why some students have a lot of questions to ask outside their school but fall silent in the class.
It will give parents great comfort to know that teaching at Delhi School of Excellence, the top CBSE school in Hyderabad, is both interactive and participative. Teachers in this school unfailingly ask subject based questions at all the three stages of learning, i.e. introduction, explanation, recapitulation.
At Delhi School of Excellence, every classroom is equipped with a white board and presenting visuals that stimulate the students’ curiosity, showcasing PPTs that enable clarity in concepts being taught or support the lesson, is a common practice! Additionally, teachers use quiz shows etc. to reinforce learning. Adopting such practices provides the teachers the scope of asking questions of all the students in the class. Care is taken to ensure that questions are appropriate and suit the ability and the mental agility of the students. Students too, are encouraged to ask questions so as to comprehend the concept clearly or clarify their doubts.
Another common practice, particularly with the senior sections, is the use of the Display Board in the classroom to ask questions. A specific group of 10 or 15 students are encouraged to write out questions pertaining to the concept just learnt, on the Board. Students are encouraged to find answers within a stipulated number of days and a marked quiz is conducted thereafter, just as in a slip test. Another interesting activity is framing questions using Times NIE Newspaper. Students are encouraged to read articles in the newspaper and frame questions.
Parents, you can never go wrong with such mentors who are epitomes of patience and resourcefulness! Do the smart thing today, let your children learn at Delhi School of Excellence! Opt to admit them in one of the three branches!