Instructional Principle: Student achievement rises when teachers ask questions that require students to apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information in addition to simply recalling facts, and when teachers give students time to think in order to answer these questions.
Two factors that seriously inhibit learning are that teachers often tend to ask only questions requiring rote memorization and that teachers expect students to answer immediately after a question is asked. Research shows that when teachers ask higher-order questions and give appropriate feedback for answers, students acquire higher-order skills. Moreover, research indicates that if teachers pause a few seconds longer and provide appropriate prompts, students can often answer higher-order questions and benefit accordingly. Excellent summaries of research on teacher questioning and wait time can be found in Barell (1985) and Tobin (1987).
Computers are not automatically superior to teachers at asking questions that involve higher-order thinking skills. In fact, a large number of drills require nothing more than rote responses. Note, however, that even if all CAI programs required merely rote responses, they could still enhance higher-order thinking by performing this rote function and freeing teachers to engage in more higher-order thinking with students.
Of course, it is also possible to program the computer to ask higher-order questions. If teachers are interested in promoting thinking skills, they should examine programs carefully and select software that requires higher-order performance (see Figure 3.13). In most cases, however, it is useful for the teacher to interact with students by asking higher-level questions about situations that arise in computer programs or that require students to obtain information from the computer to answer them.
Computers do have an inherent advantage over teachers with regard to how long they are willing to wait for the student to respond. When a teacher asks a question, a lengthy silence may signal a coming disruption in the teaching process. Thus, many teachers feel compelled to indicate that the student is "wrong" or to call on another student almost immediately. Actually, the most sensible way for a student to react to a difficult question is to pause, analyze the problem, bring to mind relevant information, develop a tentative answer, check the validity of this tentative answer, and then give the answer out loud. Since it's difficult to do this within the short time permitted by most teachers, students are obliged to "think on their feet." If they understand the question, they either give a memorized (or previously thought out) response or start talking and develop their answer while they are giving it. This may be a useful strategy for winning prizes on a game show, but it hardly teaches effective thinking. (In fact, the students who benefit are probably the other thoughtful students, who go through all the appropriate steps while the teacher is calling on the first student.) The computer solves this problem simply by waiting as long as necessary for the student to respond. There is no ominous silence after the computer presents a question, and no pressure to move on to another student. When asked a higher-order question, the student can pause, go through the appropriate steps, and then respond.
Teacher Questions
Michigan Daily Online article
http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1996/feb/02-22-96/news/research.html
Brief description of the work of Elliott Soloway on using computers to stimulate pursuit of authentic questions.
UMDL Approach to Teaching and Learning
Materials
http://www.umich.edu/~aaps/fw/page3.html
A description of how authentic questions fit into the University of Michigan Digital Library Project.
Digital Libraries in the Science Classroom: An Opportunity for Inquiry by Raven Wallace, Joseph Krajcik, and Elliot Soloway University of Michigan Digital Library Project, Middle Years Digital Library Project, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september96/umdl/09wallace.html
This is an article from D-Lib magazine describing the University of Michigan Digital Library Project work.
Different Tracks, Different Teaching
http://www.edweek.com/ew/vol-18/07tracks1.h18
Education Week article on how tracking influences the occurrence and usefulness of authentic questions.
Communities Resolving Our Problems (CROP)
http://www.ceap.wcu.edu/Houghton/Learner/learnerhomeEasy2.html
Communities Resolving Our Problems (CROP) is a general model for problem processing from K-12 into adulthood. An important component of this model is developing the ability to ask and pursue authentic questions.
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