How to Develop your Ability to ask Effective Questions?
- Create a Safe Space: Students are encouraged to ask questions in places and with people, they feel comfortable and have a certain amount of trust that they are not being judged. Your voice tone, the ability to appreciate and encourage them and being empathetic plays an important role in creating a safe space for enabling students to ask questions.
2. Know that every student is different: There are various personas of learners we can identify in a classroom, though students might not necessarily identify with one persona alone. They could be one, two or more personas mixed. Hence adapting to their styles of understanding and learning will help the educator frame the relevant questions. Spending time to understand the nature of each of your student will help immensely to interact with them on a day to day basis.
For example, if one of your students exhibit the personality type of a “Switched off Learner” your questions can be made more interesting with a bit of humor so that the student’s interest is grasped.
3. Understand the different types of Questions: In order for an educator to practice effective questioning techniques, he/she must first learn and understand the different types of questions. The below diagrams will help you recognize some of types of questions and how you can apply each while you are facilitating.
Allows people to walk into an open door for participation, to express their ideas and opinions.
The answers are usually long and explanatory because it enables people to think and explain their thinking to the group.
This is an ideal method for conducting open discussions or brainstorming sessions.
This method also helps people who are not used to talking in open discussions to open up and express themselves
Examples:
How do you spend your weekends?
How did the online course you did help you?
What can we do to make the dish taste different?
The advantage is that it can focus discussions on a specific point, and get immediate responses to a question.
The disadvantage is that when you want to listen to peoples ideas and opinions, closed questioning limits the discussion.
Takes conversations in the direction that you want to go. They usually get short answers, often a Yes or a No.
Examples:
Are you coming to Rahul’s wedding?
Will you be able to send the report by tomorrow?
Which part of the city do you have to travel to?
These questions enable the educator to drive the responses towards a desired result or outcome and is usually helpful when you want the class or a student to think in a particular angle. It helps to steer the conversation in the desired direction
Examples:
Should we really go to the wedding with tomorrow being the project deadline?
Maybe this can wait till tomorrow morning so that we can start fresh and edit the document, what do you think?
Probing Questions: This kind of questioning usually help the person who is asking the question get more clarity as well as helps the person think deeper about the situation. It enables in creating an active classroom, as students curiosity is built up till they arrive at an answer, this creates a highly engaging classroom. It also stimulates reflective thinking which helps in deciding a course of action.
The below image represents a few scenarios of how an educator can probe students
Examples:
Do you really think these are the best steps for taking this project forward?
What do you think are the issues faced by youth today?
How did you decide that this was the best country to visit for your holiday?
All of the above questioning techniques will enable you as an educator to create a 21st-century classroom experience. Let’s take a look at the comparison between a normal and what could be a 21st-century classroom.
For more examples about various questioning techniques click on the links:
Deeper Learning through Questioning
We have the Trainer Tribe Digital learning class where facilitators Rohan & Ajat conducted a class on the “Art of Asking Effective Questions” Click here to learn from the online class.
