Chapter 5: Questioning Strategies

Considering I am a future teacher, questioning is a major topic when it comes to understanding your students' knowledge. Growing up, I do not remember Higher order thinking in the classroom. However, I wish that my teachers would have used more interesting strategies in their lessons because that would have made each class a bit more interesting and exciting. The six levels of competence, which include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are all important for teachers to use in their classroom and not just on tests or assessments.

There are several strategies in chapter 5 that I really think would be great to use in the classroom. For example, the QUILT framework is a useful technique for quality questioning. QUILT stands for Question and Understand to Improve Learning and Thinking. Learning and thinking invites teachers to consider what happens both before and after the question is asked. The stages of the QUILT framework include: Prepare the Question, Present the Question, Prompt Student Responses, Process Student Responses, and Reflect on Questioning Practice. The way we word our questions and responses can shape students' beliefs about themselves and their place in the world.

The five implementation tips can be very useful for reciprocal teaching in the secondary mathematics classroom. I believe that students will learn and comprehend a lesson better by using the implementation tips other than the TED suggestions because the implementation tips are right to the point and provide almost everything you need in order to help students solve a math problem. Although, I did enjoy listening to the video in class of the math teacher because he integrated humor with learning math tips at the same time. But overall, questioning in the classroom is a MUST! Teachers must ask students questions to determine their level of comprehension. This chapter was very informative to me and taught me a lot of good strategies I did not know about.

One question I have about Chapter 5:
Teachers do tend to have the upper hand when questions are being asked. What can we do, as future teachers, to prompt our students to ask more Higher Order Thinking questions during each lesson?

Notetaking VS. Notemaking

When I first saw the word "notemaking" I thought it was just another word for "notetaking" but this is obviously not the case. I grew up in school taking notes, and if I ever did "make notes" I was not aware I was doing something different. Notetaking refers to students' written notes from a lecture or class discussion (which is what most of us have probably done throughout our entire school career). Notemaking is the act of recording notes from printed materials. Notemaking allows you go back again for more information, while notetaking does not. Studies show that students who take better notes generally do better in school. Recording the notes, also called "process function"  and reviewing the notes later, known as "product function" are both required to create valuable notes. This is referred to as the "encoding and external functions." The encoding function is something I have always had trouble accomplishing, which is being able to pay attention to the lecture while writing or taking notes. However, this allows students to deepen their understanding and transform the information they received. The external storage function gives students the opportunity to review their notes and main ideas before using the information on a test, essay, or quiz. Overall, I think students need to be taught the correct way (or successful way) to take notes so they will be organized and feel better about the entire process.


Why are some students so good at listening to a lecture and taking awesome notes and some students aren't (like me, for example)?

Why don't most teachers teach us good notetaking procedures when we are young?