Blog post 4

There are many factors that go into being an effective teacher. One of the important factors is your ability to ask effective questions. This ensures the students’ understanding of the subject matter being taught. With this in mind, there are definitely more effective ways of asking questions than others. From many of the resources given like Asking Questions to Improve Learning by Washington University in St. Louis or the video Asking Better Questions in the Classroom by Joanne Chesley, you can conclude that asking open-ended questions gives the student a better opportunity to show how well they do or do not understand the lesson. Open-ended questions allow the students to elaborate on their answers rather than simply stating “yes” or “no” to the question.  In, The Right Way To Ask Questions In A Classroom by Ben Johnson he says,“The fallacy with this thinking is that sometimes the students do not understand that they do not understand, and if they do not know what they do not know, there is no way that they can ask a question about it.” This really got me thinking. I’ve never realized that students might not understand that they don’t understand. They could be completely wrong with what they’re thinking and be under the impression that they’re right. This is one example why you need to ask specific, open-ended questions and not just “does everyone understand?” The key to asking effective questions is simply asking the right ones that ensure the students understanding; if they can teach it back to you when you ask a question, they’re on the right track.