It’s Not What We Ask; It’s How We Ask (A reflection paper about the Art of Questioning)

Arnold L. Carreon

As we all know, our learners are hungry of our wisdom that we will give to them. But how could they get it if we are not responding the call of imparting the best knowledge, skills and attitude. Our mission as a teacher can be best given if we could communicate the right questions as well as giving the rights answers. Young children are full of questions and so teachers must foster questions too.

I remember Albert Einstein, “If only I could ask the right question” and this quote is so inevitable for us teachers. Throwing the right questions will lead and help the learners to explore, construct meaning, find answers, solve problems, discover new information, clarify confusion and acquire a body of information.

As an ABM teacher, I believe that we must also teach our students to ask us. We could also give them an exam where they will ask what they learned from the topics or competencies. Some business process and terminologies are new to them, yet they have a bit schema from their past experiences. Question their background knowledge first by guiding from the known to unknown and start asking what they already know. Explicitly teach the language of critical thinking by giving HOTS questions.

Probing questions help you know how deeply the student is thinking. The students responses is very vital that could direct the teacher to form next questions and narrow the focus of the discussion. Some of the techniques I’ve used is acknowledging correct responses and praising the sincere answer of the student.

It is how we ask and how we listen to them. Learners are a bit reluctant to answer any questions but if we could give them chance and stimulate their mind of giving creative responses, they might as well cooperate with us.

Some of the insights made an impact to me. First, plan the questions. It is essential to plan and ask effective questions at a variety of levels. A greater number of questions tends to indicate greater teaching effectiveness. Second, she revisited the Bloom’s taxonomy which made me realize the value of questions for every higher level learning. Lastly, as an evaluation to the way I teach, and I quote Josef Albers, “good teaching is more a giving of right questions than giving of right answers.” Good questioning is a determinant of teaching learning outcomes.

Though it is a challenge for the teachers to challenge the learners to ask questions. Then we are stimulating them to pursue knowledge on their own. Let us not only assess our achievement of instructional goals and objectives but provide feedback and enliven a healthy and meaningful classroom discussion.

Ask factual, convergent, divergent, evaluative and reflective questions. The best way to improve questioning skills is to practice and involves a lot of listening. In a teaching-learning process, a critical skill of questioning is a waypoint on the path of wisdom.

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The author is Teacher III at Pampanga High School, Division of City of San

Fernando, Pampanga