Teachers' Awareness and Acquisition of Questioning Strategies: A Case Study

Yıl 2013, Cilt: 3 Sayı: 3, 17 - 36, 17.10.2013

Alpaslan Sahın

Öz

The importance of teachers' questioning strategy cannot be underestimated due to its widespread usage and pivotal role in teaching and learning regardless of grades and subjects. This qualitative case study design was employed to investigate middle school mathematics teachers' awareness of asking two types of questions, probing and guiding.  The study further explores teachers' habits or skills of questioning and their acquisition of this behavior through face-to-face interviews with four middle school mathematics teachers. It was found that teachers were asking questions consciously and purposefully. Also, teachers' answers revealed that why questions require more higher order thinking than how questions. For the second question, several themes emerged indicating how to acquire more effective questioning skills; student teaching or field experiences, watching and observing their colleagues, and workshops. It was also found that the colleges our participants attended did not provide good education for developing questioning skills. Video clips played important roles in reminding teachers what and why they taught.  Importance of letting teachers' watch their own teaching's videotape and questioning strategies in teacher trainings was discussed.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Guiding questions, probing questions, questioning strategies, teachers' skills, and teachers' awareness.

Kaynakça

• Açikgöz, K.Ü. (2004). Aktif ögrenme. [Active learning], 6th Ed. Izmir, Turkey: Egitim Dünyasi Publishing. Ahtee, M., Juuti, K., Lavonen, K., & Suomela, L. (2011). Questions asked by primary student teachers about observations of a science demonstration. European Journal of Teacher Education, 34(3), 3473
• American Association for the Advancement of Science. (2002). Number: Diagram to aid assessment task design . Project 2061. Unpublished document.
• Appalachia Educational Laboratory. (1994). Questioning and understanding to improve learning and thinking (QUILT): The evaluation results. A proposal to the National Diffusion Network (NDN) documenting the effectiveness of the QUILT professional development program.
• Babbie, E. (1998). The practice of social research. 8 th ed . Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont, CA.
• Barnes, D., & Todd, F. (1995). Communication and learning revisited: Making meaning through talk. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook publishers.
• Billstein, R., Williamson, J., Montoya, P., Lowery, J., Williams, D., Buck, M., et al. (1999). Middle grades MathThematics . Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell.
• Bond, N. (2007). 12 questioning strategies that minimize classroom management problems. Kappa Delta Pi Record , 18Brown, S., Ridell, S., & Duffield, J. (1995). Possibilities and problems of small-scale studies to unpack the findings of large-scale school effectiveness. In J. Gray, D. Reynolds, G. Fitz-Gibbon, & D. Jesson (Eds.). Merging traditions: The future of research on school effectiveness and school improvement. London: Cassell.
• Capraro, M. M., Capraro, R. M., & Henson, R. K. (2001). Measurement error of scores on the mathematics anxiety rating scale across studies. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 61, 373-386.
• Center for Educational Research and Innovation. (2008). Assessment for learning formative assessment. Paper presented at OECD/CERI International Conference: Learning in the 21 st Century: Research, Innovation and Policy. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/31/40600533.pdf
• Center for Faculty Excellence. (2009). Classroom activities for active learning. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved from http://cfe.unc.edu/pdfs/FYC2.pdf
• Collins, W., Dritsas, L., Frey-Mason, P., Howard, A. C., McClain, K., Molina, D. D., Moore-Harris, B., Ott, J., Pelfrey, R. S., Price, J., Smith, B., & Wilson, P. S.(1999). Mathematics applications and connections . Columbus, OH:Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.
• Cooper, P. J., & Simonds, C. J. (2003). Communication for the classroom teacher. Boston: Pearson Education. Cotton, K. (1998). Classroom questioning. Close-Up No. 5. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
• Dillon, J. T. (1990). The practice of questioning. London: Routledge.
• Drake, F. D., & Brown, S. D. (2003). A systematic approach to improve students' historical thinking, The History Teacher, 37 (2), Eric No: EJ824491
• Edwards, S., & Bowman, M. A. (1996). Promoting student learning through questioning: A study of classroom questions. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 7(2), 3-24.
• Ellis, R. (1990). Instructed second language acquisition: Learning in the classroom. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Gallagher, J., & J. Parker. (1995). Secondary science teacher analysis matrix - (SSTAM). East Lansing, MI: State University Press.
• Kawanaka, T., & Stigler, J. W. (1999). Teachers’ use of questions by eight-grade mathematics classrooms in Germany, Japan, and the United States. Mathematical Thinking & Learning, 1(4), 255-278.
• Korkmaz, O., & Yesil, R. (2010). A comparison of different teaching applications based on questioning in terms of their effects upon pre-service teachers’ good questioning skills. College Student Journal, 44 (4), 1006-1020.
• Martin, D.A. (2005). Teaching for historical thinking: Teacher conceptions, practices and, constraints. University of Standford PhD Thesis, UMI Microform 3187316, ProQuest information and Learning Company.
• Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
• Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
• Mortimore, P., Sammons, P., Stoll, L., Lewis, D., & Russell, E. (1988). School matters: The junior years. Wells: Open Books.
• Mucher, S. (2007). Building a culture of evidence through professional development, The History Teacher, 40 (2), 265-273.
• Nassaji, N., & Wells, G. (2000) ‘What’s the use of ‘Triadic Dialogue’? An investigation of teacher-student interaction. Applied Linguistics 21(3), 376-406.
• National Council of Teacher of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: Author.
• Nelson, G. D., Kulm, G., & Manon, J. R. (2000). Improving mathematics teacher practice and student learning through professional development . Proposal to the Interagency Educational Research Initiative, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC.
• Newmann, F. M. (1988). A test of higher-order thinking in social studies: Persuasive writing on Constitutional issues using NAEP approach. Social Education, 54(4), 369–373.
• Nueman, W. L. (2000). Social research methods: Quantitative and qualitative approaches (5* ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy Construct. Review of Educational Research , 62, 317–328.
• Piccolo, D. L., Carter, T. A., Harbaugh, A. P., Capraro, M. M., & Capraro, R. M. (2008). Quality of instruction: Examining discourse in middle school mathematics instruction. Journal of Advanced Academics, 19 , 376-410.
• Sahin, A., & Kulm, G. (2008). Sixth grade mathematics teachers’ intentions and use of probing, guiding, and factual questions. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 11(3), 221-242.
• Saunders, W., Nielson, E., Gall, M. D., & Smith, G. (1975). The effects of variations in microteaching on prospective teachers’ acquisition skills. The Journal of Educational Research, 69(1), 3-8.
• Schoenfeld, A. H. (1992). Learning to think mathematically: Problem solving, metacognition, and sensemaking in mathematics. In D. Grouws, (Ed.). Handbook for research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 334-370). New York: Mac Millan.
• Senemoglu, N. (1997). Gelişim, ögrenme ve ögretim: Kuramdan uygulamaya. [Development, learning and teaching -- From the theory into practice], (Ertem Publishing).
• Star, R. C., & Strickland, K.S. (2007). Learning to observe: Using video to improve preservice mathematics teachers’ ability to notice. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 11(2), 107-125.
• Stevens, R. (1912). The questions as a measure of efficiency in instruction: A critical study of Classroom practice, contributions to education . New York: Columbia University, Teachers College Press.Thompson, B. (2003). Score reliability: Contemporary thinking on reliability issues. ThousandOaks,CA:Sage.
• Wells, G. (1999) Dialogic enquiry: Towards a sociocultural practice and theory ofeducation. London: Cambridge University Press.
• West, R., & Pearson, J. C. (1994). Antecedent and consequent conditions of student questioning: An analysis of classroom discourse across the university.Communication Education, 4(43), 299-311.
• Vacha-Haase, T. (1998). Reliability generalization: Exploring variance in measurement error affecting score reliability across studies. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 58, 6-20.
• Yackel, E., Cobb, P., & Wood, T. (1998). The interactive constitution of mathematical meaning in one second grade classroom: An illustrative example. Journal of Mathematical Behaviour, 17, 469–488.
• Young, R. (1992). Critical theory and classroom talk. Clevedon: PA. Multilingual Matters Ltd.