CAN I ASK A QUESTION? THE IMPORTANCE OF CLASSROOM QUESTIONING

Moving from a teacher-focused teaching to a student-focused teaching implies a new perspective of the approaches to questioning in the classroom. Putting the focus on students’ questions rather then on teacher’s questions, and valuing students’ questions rather then emphasizing their responses is imperative in supporting learners’ higher levels of thinking. However, it is well known that usually teachers are not aware of their own questioning profiles. Furthermore, frequently teachers’ perceptions about classroom questioning are quite different from their questioning practices.
This paper outlines a workshop with 60 elementary and secondary teachers from different disciplinary fields. A 2-hour workshop was designed and implemented in order to promote teachers’ classroom questioning awareness. The workshop comprised several strategies, such as (i) analysis of excerpts of classroom discourse; (ii) discussion on the number and functions of students’ and teachers’ questions; (iii) analysis of strategies to promote student questioning. The strategies implemented will be described and the number and kind of questions raised by the teachers when trying to solve a problem-based case will be deeply analysed.