Teacher Questioning Tips: Effective
Techniques for Mediating Dialogic Talk
To enhance the approach
and mitigate some potential pitfalls in discussion or
dialogic talk following use of a prompt and student observations,
consider the following tips:
Ensure
a non-threatening learning environment. If students do
not feel it is safe to contribute to a conversation, they
usually won't. As well, remember that there is a difference
between forced dialogue and real dialogue, between challenge
and disdain or ridicule, and between rigid "turn-taking"
and allowing others to speak.
Help
students to look for discrepant events in the eliciting
prompt, contradictions between what is observed and what
was anticipated, and possible reasons. These types of
observations and ponderings naturally lead to further
investigations. Also, try recording these particularly
contradictory observations on the blackboard, flipchart,
or transparency. Students will challenge a written statement
more often than one that is just spoken aloud.
Redirect
off-topic or displaced talk toward "how" and
"what if" questions, and direct students' discussion
towards each other rather than you. Seek to enable student-student
verbal interaction. Arrange student seating to accentuate
this interaction.
Model
question-asking by prompting students to explain their
observations and their perceptions of why they saw what
they did (e.g., "Why do you think that happened?",
"I wonder what would happen if...?", "How would
you explain that to your friends so that it made sense?",
etc.).
Keep
a log or notes of the discussion, and work together with
students to synthesize the class discussion, explicitly
using their contributions, and stopping to clarify those
whose meanings are more difficult to interpret. Model
techniques for organizing students' comments and suggestions
(e.g., categorizing similar responses, eliminating redundancy,
and so forth). Not only does this help students acquire
these skills, but it greatly increases the new ideas,
questions and learning they take from the discussion,
and helps to target further investigations as appropriate.
If
this is your first time to visit
LearningLeads™, or if it has been awhile,
be sure to take a look at the LearningLeads™
homepage at: http://www.designedinstruction.com/learningleads/index.html
For
more on questioning, go to the Questioning
strategies overview page at: http://www.designedinstruction.com/learningleads/questioning.html
