The Importance Of Inquiry Based Questions

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Recommended: The inquiry teaching approach

Questions are a valuable tool for teachers to encourage inquiry, discussion, and reflective thinking. Teachers use questions to probe for prior knowledge and provide scaffolding. For students, questioning engages them to participate in discussions and provide reasoning and examples. In my field experience at S.H. Elementary, I have observed a variety of questioning techniques from my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Branson and discussions from my 3rd graders. Before diving into a lesson, Mrs. Branson briefly introduces a topic and spends the next five minutes asking students inquiry based questions. Her questions would include, “What do you already know about this topic? What are your past experiences?” Inquiry based questions are one of the most …show more content…

243). Mrs. Branson pauses for several seconds after asking a question to give her students an opportunity to develop their answers. After several seconds have passed and if there were only a few hands raised in the air, Mrs. Branson will inform the class that she will wait until she has more hands. When students deliver their answers and explanations, Mrs. Branson acknowledges answers and expands on ideas. She also directs her questioning to relate to real world experiences. For example, she asks her students what comes to mind when they hear the word electricity and what type of electrical items do they use at home. She asks students to provide specific examples and explain their …show more content…

Ask a current teacher candidate, I believe questions also motivate, spark interest, and allow students to go beyond observation and focus on the “why”. Mrs. Branson’s questions are student focused and a majority are open-ended. I believe it is important to increase open ended questions during the lesson, because it enables all students to make useful contributions to a discussion and build towards understanding. Questions allow teachers to acknowledge, verify, and build on our students inquiry and

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