I found the ‘questioning’ part of the readings very riveting. It seemed to resonate on a great level with me, because as a student, I just have too many questions. The discussion portion brought up by Lang and Davis was synchronized at many a level.
I liked Davis’ approach to structuring questions for students from general to specific, simple to complex, convergent to divergent etc. I guess, that is because, the application of concepts drives me to a great extent in class as an instructor and even as a student. I want to applaud Davis for mentioning the concept of ‘Spirited Inquiry’-When instructors question, they must convey through their voice and facial expressions that, they ask to seek knowledge and not solely to interrogate the students upon a rack. This is an art that I am very excited to learn, as it shows a progressive learning curve. This is a great way to let the students know that one’s on their side.
Davis’ idea of posing varying questions to students is very helpful. Not only does it change the pace of the class, but encourages students’ varied learning styles to come to the fore. So, some could thrive with exploratory or fact-finding questions. Those that like to connect dots (as do I) could find their muse in relational questions. The ones with firm opinions could be challenged with challenge questions. Bloom’s hierarchy of cognitive skills is mentioned again and out of those, application, analysis and synthesis make the strongest sense to me. The reason is because personally with these three skills, every little cog in the grand design of academics conveys a meaning. Building off of the above, at a certain point in my academic career, I would love to master the art of asking ‘convergent and divergent’ questions.
I can almost imagine the entire group laughing at the ‘Any questions’ bit in the Davis reading. We all fall prey to it pretty often. However, Davis nicely suggests to ask ‘why and how’ questions as opposed to simple ‘yes or no, any questions’ kind of questions. It just makes so much sense to ask questions that foster student-to-student interaction. This is another facet which really interests me and I hope to improve at it. I absolutely want to champion the concept of ‘probes’ as, again their purpose is to highlight parallel examples and relationships. The idea of thanking a student for a question and mentioning why the question is a good one (owing to its ability to showcase a relationship) is simple yet so profound. To that end, it’s a good idea not to dismiss a naïve sounding question as that might cost the class a missed out animated interaction.
It’s endearing to see Lang quote Davis on how one shouldn’t be afraid of silence. Both the authors concur, that an instructor should wait for at least ten seconds before trying to answer the question themselves. Someone will answer. This time can be used to write something on the board. Lang talks about how one learns more deeply, when they engage in more ways with new ideas/material. This fits right in context with what Davis had to say about repeating key concepts in different contexts. The concept of low-stakes writing as suggested by Lang is appealing, as that allows the student to focus their thoughts and time to think. Besides, they don’t feel intimidated as the feature does not account for high points. It’s interesting to see how both authors have common views on the participation plus attendance grade. But, some students might not be too comfortable with speaking up as they might have different learning styles. Hence, their participation grade could get affected.
I really like Davis’ idea of nipping ‘quasi-discussions’ in the bud. It makes sense as in these students talk but do not really develop their critiquing skills. For shy students, it is a good idea to write their comments on their board to up their confidence. For online discussions, I liked the idea of conveying to students, the frequency of required participation on the blog and its contribution to the final grade. Assessing the online participation of students is helpful in later evaluations as it is easily preserved online. Both Lang and Davis focus on discussion questions that emanate multiple answers for better student participation.
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