Learning Objectives

• Distinguish between convergent and divergent questions and cite advantages and disadvantages of each
• Classify questions according to levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Identify and apply suggestions from the literature into a clinical teaching experience
• Analyze your own use of questioning techniques in a clinical teaching setting

• Activity--Identifying Good Questions

• Convergent and Divergent
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Critical Thinking
• Specific Suggestions from the Literature

• Convergent Questions
• few responses
• generally desirable to begin with very convergent questions (especially in primary grades) and move toward more divergent ones later on
• use to emphasize observation, description, recall, comparisons
• Note overuse of convergent questions
• Divergent Questions
• multiple responses
• use to emphasize drawing inferences, hypothesizing, organizing data, experimentation
• Studies indicate (Carin and Sund, 1978) that increasing the number of divergent questions increases the quality of student production in terms of number and depth of response
• To use more divergent questions....
• Avoid questions that can be answered by yes or no
• Questions that begin with do, did, or, are, is, can, will, would, and should usually require a yes or no response.
• Enhance your convergent questions: Why? How might we find out? What makes you think so?
• Look for questions that ask children to discover conditions that could change objects or events.
• Ask children questions that require them to discover and compare things

• Evaluation
• Synthesis
• Analysis
• Application
• Comprehension
• Knowledge

• Do not stop with the right answer
• Based on the premise that students can apply thinking skills to learning science concepts and principles by the following steps

• Doing through direct, firsthand experiences in an interactive, open, atmosphere
• Constructing by building their knowledge through guided inquiry
• Connecting by relating their learning to the world around them.

• Don’t Be in a Hurry...
• Wait-time 1
• Wait time 2
• Making Discussion student-Centered
• "Ping-Pong"
• "Basketball"
• Leading Better Guided Discovery Lessons
• Do not give rewards during discovery discussions
• Recognizing achievement
• Provide halting-time
• Avoid multiple questions
• Avoid overreaction
• Break constrictive thinking
• Ask students to clarify material
• Guard against overgeneralizations
• ask students to summarize
• Amplify and pursue the thought
• Consider the emotional overtone of the material
• Paraphrase what students say
• Use sensitive listening techniques
• Suggestions for sensitive listening
• Focus on the person and what he or she is saying
• Do not take the discussion away from the children
• Give nonverbal signals to show you are concerned and that you are listening
• Develop silent time
• Look for indicators that children may want to say something
• Do not interrupt
• Asking Questions Appropriate to the Piagetian Level
• Primary and Lower elementary
• Observing
• Grouping and simple classification
• Measuring
• Using numbers--e.g., counting
• Making inferences
• Indicating time and space relations
• Conserving substance, length, number, area
• Reversibility
• Values
• Interpersonal relations
• Predicting
• One-to-one correspondences
• Upper elementary beyond age 11
• Formulating hypotheses
• Learning to control a variable
• Designing relatively sophisticated experiments
• Interpreting data from experiments
• Conservation of mass and volume
• Making operational definitions
• Constructing models (theories)