For an effective academic discourse, making the teaching interactive and more engaging is the skill of a teacher that helps the students. How can it be achieved? A class should not be something that the teacher is delivering the class and writing on a board and copying in a book by students. It must be more interactive by asking questions, clearing doubts and sharing knowledge. The art of questioning skill lies at the basis of all good teaching.
There are many methods to make a class more interactive. Smart classes are a good idea for making the classes live. Theory portions of subjects like biology can be quickly learnt, and doubts will be comparatively less. For maths questions, the solutions will be a little tricky and challenging to solve. So it is the duty of a teacher to always encourage students to ask questions or doubts to help them to score good marks.
Tips for Developing Questioning Skills
There are few strategies for asking questions. Here are some tips explained below
Ask Questions One at a Time.
If you want to make a class more live and interactive, ask questions to students. The questions that you ask the students must be more relevant and understandable. Many questions at a time will make them confused and thus do not work. By asking questions, they can also be able to clear their doubts. Encourage them also to ask doubts and questions regarding the subjects.
Make Examples Related to Daily Life.
Students can remember the topics by relating anything to daily life examples. There are many instances where we use a real-life example. So that they can easily understand the topics and will raise questions also, instead of taking long classes by reading textbooks, teaching can improve students to learn concepts quickly.
Conduct Debates
Debates are one of the ways to promote the skill of questioning. In a class, making two groups of students and giving a topic to speak about is also a good way. This technique will improve them to ask questions and share knowledge of their own. Conducting debates helps them in future also. Instead of stepping back without raising their voice, they will be able to speak in a crowd also.
Redirect and Correct the Wrong Answers
Whenever a question is asked to a student, and he/she answers wrong, you have to patiently correct it instead of making fun or getting angry. So that students will feel so open and will be confident enough to ask questions. By doing this, questioning skills can be improved.
Give Time to Think
After every topic or concept, those who cannot grasp it quickly usually take a little more time. This is the time for thinking or understanding what they learnt. By this time, they will get more doubts and raise questions. There are many study materials available in the market. Students, as well as teachers, can make use of it. Questions forum can help students to achieve deep knowledge about the topics and subjects.
Summary
Asking questions are always promoted for improving learning. It is beneficial for all the students to assess themselves by asking doubts in the class whether the concepts are understood or not. This also creates a language-rich environment by improving communication skills and also critical thinking.