TI-AIE: Questioning: why do we fall ill?

What this unit is about

This unit is about asking good questions, responding to students’ answers and encouraging students to ask questions.

Teachers spend 35–50 per cent of their time on class questioning. Effective questioning enhances student learning. Good questioning can direct their attention to key concepts and help to improve your students’ understanding. It will also help you to find out what your students know and understand about a topic, enabling you to adjust your approach if necessary. However, effective questioning is difficult for teachers. There are different types of questions to consider, and questions can be asked in all sorts of different ways. Careful planning is required to ensure that you ask the kinds of questions that support student thinking and learning. How you react to students’ responses will also determine how effective your questioning is, in terms of supporting learning. As you will discover, thinking of good questions to ask will help your own understanding of a topic and the same applies to your students. So creating an atmosphere in which students feel confident to ask questions themselves will help you to become a more effective teacher.

The ideas in this topic will be illustrated through the Class IX topic ‘Why do we fall ill?’, but they also apply to all the other topics that you will have to teach in science.

What you can learn in this unit