June 2008: Ms. Socrates: employing questioning strategies with my summer school class

Friday, June 20, 2008

OK, I realize that’s a pretty presumptuous title for this blog entry. But, it’s something I strive for as a teacher: to question my students in such a way that develops their interest and nurtures their insights.

 Tuesday was my formal evaluation day. I taught the IEGO: the Informative Essay Graphic Organizer. I was nervous, but I had a simple, clear lesson plan as my shield against terror: instruction first, guided practice second, individual practice third. The flow of my lesson plan presented an excellent opportunity to employ the “four S’s” alternatives to questioning technique, specifically silence and statements. This lesson was a success because I finally managed to put the students to work and “perform” most of the class period for me.  At lesson’s end, I did not feel like I had talked myself blue in the face. Rather, I felt energized! This was the most fun lesson I have taught so far (at least, I had fun).

For instruction, I showed them a filled-in IEGO on the topic of “three places I would like to visit” (Australia, Greece, Egypt), with supporting details. I hadthem read it aloud so that the instruction part of the lesson did not put them to sleep (and I got to save my voice).  Then, I gave them a blank IEGO that theyhad to fill in with their own ideas, as a class. With Anna M’s advice, I decided to make the prompt an interesting one. I was afraid it might be controversial, but she assured me that letting them vote on “who do you think should be the next US president, and why?” would get them interested. Plus, having people come up to the board and offer new ideas would get them riled up, in a delightfully orderly and academic way. Anna predicted, “The students will become curious as their classmates are speaking their opinions and going up to the board to write them. ‘What? What’d she say? What’s he writing?’ they’ll think.” My hope was that then they’d also wonder, “What could I say? What could I write?”

You can see now how this mode of guided practice would lend itself to the four S’s method. Although getting students to provide and call out main ideas with supporting details was sometimes like pulling teeth, I was so delighted at the wonderful reasons they came up with. As a class, they voted for Obama. Then, ever so slowly, as I waited in silence by the poster, three students eventually raised their hands. In the intervening time, as I waited, I could hear a chorus of a million crickets chirping as well as the teeny second-hand ticking on my wristwatch. I would say nothing for a few seconds to allow for others to join in. Immediately, Lamar contributed “he wrote a book.” But then, many moments later, as I let the silence perform its magic, Gracey and Savannah each came forth and proffered: “he’s intelligent,” and “he has fresh ideas.” I cannot tell you how thrilled I was! Here I was worrying that they would get stumped after two plain reasons, “he’d be the first black president” and “he’s young.” But no, they outperformed me and my own puny, limited mind as I had attempted to anticipate their answers. I am so impressed with my students.

Silence is now my favorite ‘questioning’ strategy because it brings about the great benefits of: (a) realizing that my students are bright and their answering capacity will surprise and even outdo me if I’ll only give them the time to think; (b) educating each other in current events – it’s good for all of us to feel awkward in the silence and realize that we do not know enough and should find out more; and (c) ultimately, there is a unified product to prove that the whole class accomplished something afterwards.

Silence increases the realm and range of possibilities in students’ answers. Learning becomes less about rigid Q & A, more about exploring and expanding. It gently nudges them to be original, so they do not feel like they’re being so bold or taking a risk. That’s the key: silence is so gentle! Also, as I said, it works like magic. It places the work in their own hands. I just facilitated by asking for ideas, then “forcing” silence on them to work it out.

The silence technique also worked well because it allowed for great classroom management (it’s easy to monitor, and is itself a good environment for their thinking) at the same time as the energy level and focus of the students was palpable (alright, if you don’t buy the hyperbole, at least believe that it was high. The students were clearly engaged the full 15 minutes that they created the poster together. There was a marked increase in interest level on their part, compared to my past two lessons.). The silence technique also resulted in a fairly equal distribution of student participation, although I did still have to call on those students who do not raise their hands to go up and write for us. “The class will help you do it,” I encouraged them.  I think that putting a shy student in front of the class to write had the effect of making the students sitting down empathize with him/her and want to help him/her out! All the better for participation. So to the above list, I’d now add (d) the silence questioning technique increases students’ respect for and collaboration with one other.

Sometimes I would fill little bubbles of silence, but only right after a student said something. I would make a short statement that reflected on what the student said. The ‘right’ sort of statement led to a multiplication of raised hands and new comments. For example, I responded to Lamar’s main idea, “Obama wrote a good book,” with, “yes, it sold a lot of copies.” This led to three new raised hands that volunteered to provide supporting details (even though it took some silence to get them all): “he is a good writer,” “he has an audience that wants to hear him,” and “the book shows that he’s educated.” So the main benefit of using the Statements technique is the increased participation and “tuning-in” of students. I will absolutely use the 4 S’s technique again in my classroom. This was my best lesson so far, because it had not only a high level of student engagement, but I could tell by my formal assessments (classwork of independently-done IEGOs) that they got it. So it was fun and effective. Any strategy that can manage both of those things is a keeper. I want to incorporate what I’ll hereafter call “palpable silence” into my lesson plans as much as possible!