Questioning Techniques

           For the second week of summer school myself as well as the other teachers were instructed to try a different questioning strategy for our classroom.  There were several unique strategies presented although I decided to employ ‘cold calling’ in my 7^th grade math class.  Dr. Monroe had originally suggested randomly picking Popsicle sticks with each student’s name on them to make it completely random but I decided to simply call on students regardless of them having their hands up. 

            To give some background, the 7^th grade summer school class is decently quiet and well behaved.  The day before the students arrived at summer school I vividly remember imagining how badly behaved my students would act.  The following day when they arrived in class I was pleased with their behavior and adherence to the classroom rules.  Since that first day I have continued to be impressed with their behavior and although there are minor outbursts occasionally our classroom is definitely a place for learning.  In addition my teaching strategy is one student readily participate because there is so much guided practice.  To get students who may not typically raise their hand to participate I often lease more wait time for easier problems such as ‘what is 4 – 1?’  I believe this strategy gets more students involved.  Overall students participation is a strength of our classroom which made ‘cold calling’ an even more intriguing strategy. 

            Since this is a blog and not a research paper, I will use the Wikipedia definition of cold calling so everyone is on the same page:

            Cold calling is the process of approaching prospective customers or clients, typically via telephone, which were not expecting such an interaction. The word "cold" is used because the person receiving the call is not expecting a call or has not specifically asked to be contacted by a sales person.

            Ok, now that everyone is on the same page it is important to note that in the classroom the teacher basically calls on whoever he or she wants and there is no need for a student to be raising their hand or even be paying attention.  When I began the strategy on Monday the students were a little surprised.  I even called on one student and he responded with ‘I didn’t raise my hand’.  I told him I didn’t care whether he had his hand up or not I wanted to know the answer.  That kind of set the tone of the class for this past week and I saw a lot of kids sitting up straighter and ready to answer questions. 

            It is also important to note that students began to not raise their hands as much because they knew that I was just going to call on someone.  In addition they also knew when I wanted hands up because when a question was posed I would simply ask ‘raise your hand if you know the answer’.  Overall I felt that this strategy was incredibly effective and I will be using it in the future.  Even when Dr. Monroe has used the strategy in class I’ve found myself listening more intently on what is said out of fear of not knowing the right answer.

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