How to question without making your student feel stupid

After reading an article by James Dryer from the University of Florida Extension I feel that I have a better idea of effective questioning techniques. James starts off by stating that teachers on average ask between 300-400 questions per day which are answer seeking instead of using questions as a way to evaluate students prior or past knowledge.

Dryer goes on to say that there are a variety of reasons to ask questions and there are as followed:

• Assess the level of student's comprehension
• Develop student interest or motivation
• Develop thinking skills
• Establish relationships between concepts

Inorder to properly ask questions one must know the levels of questions to be asked. There are two levels, lower and higher level. Lower level is asking at knowledge, comprehension and the simple application level of Blooms. Lower level questions are good to:

• evaluate students' preparation and comprehension
• diagnose students' strengths and weakness
• review and/or summarizing content

Higher level questions are good for:

• encouraging students to think more deeply or more critically 
• solve problems
• encourage discussions
• stimulate students to seek information on their own 

I believe that in-order to ask the right questions teachers need to ask both kinds of questions. If students get the right answer then I would ask them to explain. Its one thing to know the answer but it is another thing to understand what is actually being taught. 

Once the teacher understands the level of questions to ask they must then understand what the difference is between open and closed questions. Open-ended questions relate to ones that have several ways of answering. A closed-ended questions is one with only a limited number of acceptable answers exist.

after that is understood the next area is genreal and directed questions. A general questions is asking a quesiton to the group as a whole and a directed question is asking a questions to one student only. Genral questions are asked to check the level of understanding of the class and a direct questions is done to either better control the classroom, to get a student to pay attention more or to even get a student to think beyond the basics.

Direct questions can be used with the section I am going to go over now. Teachers always wonder how to maximize student participation. Well Dryer has a great section on this in his article. Some of the ideas that I like are listed below.

• call on specific students to answer questions. Phrase a question first, and then call on a student. If you call the students name first, the rest of the class may not listen to the question.
• Avoid looking down at notes after asking a question. you should be looking for volunteers and noting confusion or understanding of students. This will give you the opportunity to see what other students do not understand the information presented.

After all questions have been asked, teachers also need to know how to respond to the students questions. After listening to the answer that the student gives the teacher, there are different ways to respond. Teachers can do any of the following

• answer the question
• redirect the question to the rest of the class
• help the student answer his/her own question
• ask the student to see you after class
• defer the question to a more appropriate time
• refer the student to a resource where they may find the answer
• admit that you do not know the answer but tell them you will find out.  

Overall, having classroom management and being able to see if your students are understanding the concept being taught is the best way to see if you are doing your job. The most important thing is to ask questions and do it the right way. 

What makes a good field trip?

All you hear now days is students and teachers complaining because they can not take a really cool field trip. However, what the students do not realize is it takes a lot of prepratation and money for a field trip to happen. I just read an article by Brain Myers and Linda Jones from the University of Florida Extension titled "Effective Use of Field Trips in Educational Programming: A Three Stage Approach". This article goes into detail about what is needed to plan a great field trip.

Some good points were made about how field trips now days are becoming more sparce and are not even fun for the students. I believe that all field trips should be part of the instructional program and provide participants with first hand experience related to the topic being discussed.

Myers and Jones put how to plan a good field trip together. There are three steps, which are as followed.

1. Pre-Trip
1. Adminsitration
2. Instruction 
1. topic content 
2. vicarious exposure
2. Trip
1. Role of Participants
2. Role of Organizer
3. Post-Trip
1. Debrefing Activity
2. Culminating Activity

The administration aspect of planning is to arrange logistics including transportation, schedule and permission slips. Great it the teacher is going to help with this, I mean it is their trip, however the administrator needs to have the final say. 

The instruction content of the pre-trip should be to get the students excited. All field trips should have a purpose therefore pre-instruction is needed. This is the teachers chance to explain to the students what to expect on the trip and what the importance is.

During the trip students and teachers need to know what is expected of them. Teachers are to be there for a reference for the students and the instructors. Teachers should not run the trip but allow the control of her students to be put in the organizer of the facility.

The students during the trip should be on their best behavior as well as engaged in the information being presented to them. Field trips are to be for the better of the students. There are to be used to ehance the learning situtation presented to the students.

After the trip has ended there should be a debriefing session, even if only on the way home. Students should be able to answer the following questions: what was the importance of this trip, what did I learn that I could not learn in the classroom, and was it worth to drive here and not just have a guest speaker come to the school? After the debriefing sessions the teacher should somehow have an activity ready for the students to show what they learned. This is a great way for teachers to show the administration that the trips they take are worth it.

Hoepfully these few tips along with reading the articled will help any other teachers make field trips worth while.

Interest Approach

Have you ever wondered how food gets from your mouth and then back out? Well, this is what I tried to teach in my interest approach lab. I found this really cool idea to use stocking, water, a banana and a piece of graham cracker. You smash all of the food up and some water in a bag and then cut a whole in the bag and squeeze the food through to the stockings, then a whole from one stocking to another. This is all to represent food passing. While passing the food through you are to ask students about what is happening to the food and how it is being asborded. Sounds messy I know.

I tried this lab out at home with my 7 year old sister and she loved it. It was not as gross as I thought it would be. However, when I did it in class it was a mess. I had one student say that he did not want help due to the mess.

Looking back on how I taught the interest approach I see that there are things that I need to change. I should have gone into more detail about each section and maybe slowed down some to see if the students were understanding it.

Some things that I thought that I did good was catching the students interest and keeping them involved. I had each student (that wanted to) do a part of the pushing the food through.

Overall I am planning on using this in my digestive system unit.

Lets see how next week goes.

First Day of Class

This week I got to practice how I would implicate the classroom exceptions/rules and consequences. Walking into the classroom for the first time is nerve wreaking. I thought that I could handle it due to teaching in classrooms for the last 4 years. But having your own class and not knowing what to expect from the students just adds to the nerves.

My first lab was called "First day of Class". I came up with a great lesson plan on how to start off my school year and an interest approach to get into the class after covering rules. My classmates had to role play different types of students that I may encounter. I had a complainer/whiner, constantly confused, the arrogant and then a teachers pet. I honestly thought that I could handle this but once I started teaching instantly the thought of "what did I get myself into?"

Looking back on my experience I realized that I did not handle everything the way that was best. I became flustered. I have learned that when a students ask a question about parents to maybe ask to talk to them after class. I have also learned that I need to be more strict. Also many commented that I need to be more enthused.

I also came to this lab with a project that I want to try out with my students. After teaching my lesson I asked my classmates what they thought of it and I was told that it is a great idea but maybe not to limit the species that may be researched and not to have so many options for presenting the information.

Overall this lab was an eye opener on what I need to do better and to change.

Till next time.......

Why Agriculture Education?

When growing up children always think about what they want to be when they grow up. Many always want to follow in their parents footsteps. Well that was me. I grew up with a mother who is a nurse and a father who is an agriculture teacher. Therefore, I have either wanted to be a veterinary (kinda relates to nursing) or an agriculture teacher. While in high school I was given the opportunity to work at a local veterinary hospital. This ignited my desire to work with animals. Right out of high school I attended the Vet Tech Institute in Pittsburgh. This is a great program, however after completing about six months I cam to the thought that I would be doing the same thing that I did in high school. I felt like I was paying $30,000 for a degree that others were doing as high school students. I applied to attend Penn State University for ag education at this point.

Why Penn State and why Ag Education? That's easy, Penn State has been a family tradition for the Laubs and they also have the best program for Agriculture. To answer why ag education. I went in thinking that 'what is something I can do where I can combine both of my dreams into one?', this is it.

Being an Agricultural Educator is more than being a teacher. Its about making a difference in your students lives. Like I stated at the

beginning my father was an ag teacher, he was mine. I was able to see the effect that his students had on him and the effect he had on them. I want to be that way too.

Stay turned for more to come.