Questioning Strategies

                                        
    
     Chapter Five of the text indicates various strategies useful to teachers interested in creating quality questions.  Indeed, questions are vital to prompting critical thinking skills.  However, too often teachers present questions that only begin to scratch the surface of students' potential.  Of importance, as teachers we should be careful to avoid closed-ended questions.  If we continue to ask an array of yes/no questions, then we are not extending our students' thinking.  Certainly, Bloom's depth of knowledge can serve as a guide for creating higher-order thinking questions.  However, I question the authenticity of some seemingly higher-order thinking questions.  Do teachers place words such as explain and analyze in front of a question and automatically consider this a higher-order thinking questions?  Are we sure to utilize critical thinking skills in our own mental processes before asking students to do the same?  Do we evaluate pre-service teacher programs and ensure their ability to extend student thinking to ensure future teachers are instilled with critical thinking skills?
     Strategies such as QTA, ReQuest, QAR and SQ3R are useful tools to asses content area knowledge.  In my own educational experiences, I have been exposed to the SQ3R strategy.  My high school Spanish class briefly exercised this strategy.  Although my teacher's intentions were well-directed, he failed to successfully deliver this strategy and its benefits.  We used the strategy during only two lessons and he did not spend enough time introducing this strategy and modeling its usefulness.  Instead, he could have first explained the strategy and provided multiple exposures instead of only two.  However, I believe this teacher's methodology is one we can often be tempted to fall into as teachers.  We recognize the benefits of certain strategies and present them to our class but fail to offer a quality exposure.  We feel pressed for time and revert back to monotonous lessons with which we feel comfortable.  How can we push ourselves outside of our own comfort zones and still feel confident in the lesson we present?
     Lastly, I would like to recognize the benefits of student inquiry and reciprocal teaching.  This style allows students to discover solutions to their questions.  I certainly hope to implement this discovery in my future classroom.  However, this teaching method can often be difficult for teachers to adopt, especially first-time teachers.  Indeed, while I recognize its importance and usefulness, I still fear this method may lead to more student distraction.  Moreover, many teachers worry that this teaching method will remove their control of the classroom.  Perhaps, the text could offer more ways to alleviate this concern and help prevent distractions while still allowing student independence and discovery.  As a future teacher, I aim to encourage student and independence whenever possible.  Therefore, I hope to incorporate student inquiry, higher-order thinking questions, and critical thinking skills in my classroom to provide discovery-building lessons and increase self esteem and autonomy for my students.      

Note-taking

                                           
    Certainly, as Chapter Seven of the text indicates, note-taking is a valuable skill.  Indeed, it is a skill that more teachers should help students acquire.  However, teachers should introduce note-taking in a balanced and varied manner.  For example, one note-taking strategy may work for some students but not for all.  In addition, teachers cannot score student's notes and find some of their work invalid because what means nothing to the teacher may translate into valuable notes for the student.  How do we present a lesson on note-taking that is flexible enough for all students?  Moreover, how do we determine the appropriate amount of instructional time to focus on these skill building exercises?  
     Another question this chapter generates is how can one decide what is truly important enough to be recorded in one's notes?  For example, during a history lecture, one may incessantly record dates of historical events.  To some, these may be valuable records.  However, I find it much more valuable if the student can draw an overall concept from the lecture as opposed to facts and statistics.  If my students understand what events led to WWII as opposed to recalling the date it began, then I believe I have made greater use of my student's learning opportunity.  
     Of importance, note-taking is not an easy skill to teach.  The text suggests generating research questions as a note-taking exercise.  However, I question the text's simple presentation of this skill.  The author seems to assume this is an easily acquired technique.  However, it is often quite difficult for students to generate questions of their own.  I often find this task difficult in my own academic assignments.  How do we teach students to generate thoughtful, meaningful questions?  Indeed, these lessons are life skills that we must help our students attain.  Teaching students to be reflective, evaluative thinkers is one goal I certainly hope to achieve as an educator.  Developing students' common sense and ability to generate questions is an all-encompassing technique.