Teacher and student questioning in Maths

Di Teodoro, S., Donders, S., Kemp-Davidson, J., Robertson, P., & Schuyler, L. (2011). Asking good questions: Promoting greater understanding of mathematics through purposeful teacher and student questioning. Canadian Journal of Action Research, 12(2), 18-29.

Background

The team of teacher-researchers from four different elementary schools in the District of Niagara (Canada) felt there was a lack of depth to their students’ understanding of mathematics.

Aims

The team wanted the students to become more independent as learners. They also wanted a good balance between pre-planning lessons while maintaining flexibility.

Sample

The teachers looked at their own teaching with their elementary school classes. There were four classes, each from a different school in the district.

Method

The team developed a way of categorizing questions into ‘surface’ and ‘deeper’ questions. In short, surface questions prompted answers that imitated or recalled material covered by the teacher; deeper questions allowed students to create, analyse or evaluate. The team prepared a list of questions before each lesson with a target minimum of 50% deeper questions.

They taught the students the same question categories by giving them a list of questions to sort into the two types. They also drew charts to display the importance of asking deeper questions.

The classes were then given mathematical problems to solve. During the process, the use of questions was emphasized.

Team members visited each other’s classrooms and recorded the teacher and student questions. Student questions used during the solution of the first and last problems in the series were counted and categorized. Teacher questions were counted for all three questions.

The teachers recorded their reflections in anecdotal journals and later compared their observations.

Findings

The data for the students showed a marked increase in the number of questions asked (from 97 to 234) while the proportion of deeper questions rose from 24% to 70%. For teachers, the proportion of deeper questions rose from 25% to 69%. The team expected this focus on deeper questions would lead to fewer questions being asked. However, they found the number of questions increased from 97 to 163.

Implications

The teacher team felt the results indicated that questioning needed to be taught, students got better at analysing questions, richer learning took place during consolidation work, and preparing questions in advance was important. They felt working together as a team had helped the teachers understand questioning and given them more support.

Original article retrieved from EBSCOHost.