Designing and Using Probing Questions
Linking Exploratory Activities with Concepts
Module One

Ron Hochmuth, Instructor
hochmuth@alexandriacentral.org
fax: (315)482-9973

Objectives:

Long term - to apply inquiry based teaching as an instructional strategy - to recognize the variety of inquiry based styles of questions that exist Short term - to recognize your propensity in asking questions during a class

It would seem the art of questioning is one of the earliest and natural pedogogies as man began to "teach and learn." The natural course of exchange between child and adult was typically predicated by an inquisitive child who asked seemingly simply questions of the who, what, when where, why and how origin. If we use our imaginations and jog our memories, we know the natural curiosity of a child in their search to comprehend their world. However, it would appear that this curiosity is "lost" as a child progresses through school. Therefore, it becomes incumbent upon the teacher to re-instill the inquisitiveness of the student by crafting questions that leads to student learning or further reciprocal questions by the student that clarify the learning process Or so we purport!

Our endeavor in this class is to give credence to the "art" of questioning as a viable teaching tool for students to learn. The dissection of what on the surface appears to be a simple act.... the asking of a question.... is actually far more complex and this dissection is what will give the practitioner (you) at the conclusion of this course the skill to use inquiry as an effective teaching strategy. And so it goes......

Please e-mail me responses to the following:

Your Name
Your full email address
With regard to using probing questions in the classroom:
I consider myself a novice,
I have some familiarity, but little classroom experience,
I have a reasonable amount of proficiency,
I have extensive experience using numerous strategies
Please include any additional comments you have at this time.

October's assignment:

You will need to gain recognition of how many questions you ask during a typical class. Ask a colleague or administrator (or self evaluate via video taping or even ask a student if you are a high school teacher) to observe your class and have them identify how many questions you asked during a specific period of time (a little tick mark on a piece of paper should suffice for this exersize) You may want to do this exercise a few times over a week's time. Since you are establishing your base line, try to do your "typical" teaching. In the future we will explore if there are changes in the quantity and quality of your questioning. Upon receipt of the "ticked" list take a few mmutes to begin to reflect on the following: 1) your reaction to the number of questions you actually asked. 2) Begin to recognize where questions could have been interjected during the lesson. 3) What was your sense of student reaction to the questions asked? 4) Do a cursory perspective of the depth of your questions.

Example: "How much thought was required by the student"? In the months that follow we will be looking at the 'depth of questions' vis a vis Blooms Taxonomy.

Extra credit: using as your search word INQUIRY LEARNING find an article on this topic from the web. Read and reflect. Provide which website address will be shared with colleagues in this cohort.