Questioning Techniques

• An interactive teaching approach stimulates students to think rather than to listen passively, so show that you are open to questions by paying attention to your audience and asking questions frequently. Some of your questions will be addressed to the whole group and other questions to individuals.
• Don't hesitate to call on all of your students, not just the ones who raise their hands. You will find that the classroom atmosphere is improved when many students participate in the discussion and the whole class stays alert.
• Think about the types of questions you ask and try to vary them from easy and factual to more thought-provoking.
• Make sure that students can hear each others' questions and answers, and listen attentively yourself.
• A silent class is often an indication that the students have not understood the material easily. They may very well be completely confused and unable to phrase questions or simply intimidated.
• Teachers often sprinkle their lectures with the following questions: "Do you all understand?" or "Any questions?" or "Is this O.K.?" Students almost never answer these questions because they don't want to appear dumb. You will have better results asking more explicitly "Why did I multiply?" or "What other functions behave this way?" or "Am I going too fast?"
• After you ask a question, don't call on someone too quickly for an answer. Leave sufficient time for all of the students to think about how to answer. They will learn more. It's a good idea to wait at least 4 seconds (try counting).
• Don't answer your own questions. Questions phrased like "What shall we do now, graph it?" give the students the impression that you won't require them to think for themselves.
• If you are short of time, you can postpone a question to a later time or to a later class.
• If a question isn't of interest to the whole class, don't answer it during class. If you carry on a private conversation with one student, the rest will lose interest immediately, so answer very specialized questions after class or during office hours.