Journal #4

Yesterday in class we opened with a discussion on “How is questioning like an apple?”  Our class generated responses such as:
-An apple has seeds and when we ask questions it is like planting a seed.
-   An apple has a stem and many questions (as we came to learn) start with generic stems that help us communicate what we are trying to say.
-An apple is round just like most of our questions are rounded. We can keep them going around and around, jumping from one idea to the next.

This last one actually got me thinking how questioning is actually more like branches or raindrops.  My reasoning for this is because once you have the start of one (much like questions) it quickly leads to another and another and so on…  Once we got deeper into our lecture for class I started thinking about how I was going to most effectively use questioning in my future classroom.  Through questions I want to challenge my students to start using higher order thinking skills.  If my questions are open ended the students can expand and begin to make their own assumptions.  This can lead my students to problem solving.  A technique we discussed in class that I particularly found intriguing was to ask a question in a way that insinuates that you yourself (the teacher) also do not know the answer.  This challenges students to answer the question because they believe that just waiting for the teacher to give them the answer will not work this time.  I received many helpful hints like this one and many more from yesterday’s class.  I am really enjoying all the handouts we are given because I believe that even when I am a teacher in my own classroom I will be referring to them.