Facilitating student discussions can be one of the most difficult aspects of teaching. Harvard University’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning provides today’s tip on different types of questions that can promote student participation in classroom discussions.
1. Open Ended Questions: What's Going On? What do you make of this situation? Casting question nets out to see what comes in. Listen for entry and emphasis points.
2. Asking for Information: Where? When? Who? What? Facts and opinions.
3. Diagnostic Questions: How do you interpret and explain "A" and "B's" impact on the situation? How do you weave these points into some kind of understanding of what else is going on, possibly behind the scenes?
4. Challenge Questions: Why do you say that? How would you explain this? Where is the evidence for what you say? How can you say a thing like that? Is that all? That's just the opposite of what Student X said. Can you persuade him/her?
5. Extension Questions: Exploring the issues. What else? Can you take us farther down that path or find new tributaries? Keep going? Therefore?
6. Combination Questions: How would you relate your points to those mentioned by Student A or to something else you said? How would you understand X in light of Y?
7. Priority Questions: Which issues do you consider most important? Where do you start? How would you rank these?
8. Action Questions: What would you do in Person X's shoes? How?
9. Prediction Questions: What do you think would happen if we followed Student Z's action plan? Give us a forecast of your expectations. How will he/she react to your thinking?
10. Generalizing and Summarizing Questions: What inferences can we make from this discussion and case? What generalizations would you make? How would you summarize the three most critical issues that we have discussed? Can you summarize the high points of the discussion thus far?
Copyright © 2002-2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Permission is granted to non-profit educational institutions to print and distribute this document for internal use provided that the Bok Center's authorship and copyright are acknowledged.
Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University
Julie Damerell
Transitional Studies
01/21/2011 |