Questions are the Answer

 

[The poster above popped into my WhatsApp feed this morning and two things got me hooked immediately.  The speaker, Anita Brooks, is an amazing educationist who is known to manage an entire school, one kid at a time, successfully.  The topic - The Power of Effective Questioning in Classrooms - has always been one of my favourite songs to sing when I work with teachers.  In fact, one of my sessions in my teacher-training programmes is called, as in the title, Questions are the Answer. Side benefits for carving out a little time in a boring, stay-home day include the fact that Anita is a very close family friend of ours, the Principal of Delhi Public International School, and also that EdTalks sounds a little like Ted Talks which has its own brand value.  You can watch the 32 min video here ]  

Speed of Light and Sound

Let me be my own despicable self and criticize the technology first, before I get into the happy job of analysing the content.  I discovered why some people think that sound travels faster than light.  The audio and video of the programme were out of sync making both Anita and the Presenter look like they were hosting a show in a foreign language, without subtitles.  The lag between the sound and video could have been solved before the program. Differences between the video formats used by the Presenter and Anita should have been worked out earlier.  However, none of this detracts from the content of the program, though the glaring poster across the bottom of the screen could have been a little more subtle.  One hopes that Entab Campus Care will take care of these things in future programs.

Relativity of Time

What went very well for Entab is that they spent just 1 minute of the total 32 to introduce their organization and another minute to introduce the topic and Anita Brooks, leaving a full 30 minutes for the actual interaction.  In my opinion, for a topic like this, 30 minutes is far too limited. But on the up side, these days with dozens of webinars and talks from which to choose, this limited time format is relatively good.  In fact, it even compels the speaker to cut to the chase and get straight into the nitty gritties.  It also forces out the "few words from our Chairman" that somehow sneaks into place in most programmes.  

A Breath of Fresh Air

I was particularly glad to see that neither the presenter, whose name wasn't mentioned either in print or verbally, and Anita Brooks did not have a pre-written speech written out. I've been so against the practice of six people on screen, each of whom would "deliver their address" and some would actually leave for their home address after doing so!  Not to mention the VIPs who had a 'plane to catch' or 'another meeting', so they can't take questions.

So it was like a breath of fresh air, so rare in Kolkata these winter days and even rarer in Delhi, to have speakers speak from the heart and from the mind rather than from a prepared thesis on paper.  It's also helped to have a speaker look your straight in the eye and talk to you - it feels involved and attention grabbing.

Please Unmute Yourself

Anita made some very quick points about effective questioning where she talked about the classroom becoming interactive the moment questions are introduced. I couldn't agree more.  As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost, many teachers (not to be blamed) have tried to maintain "contact" with the children on the virtual medium by, generally speaking, generally speaking.  And continuously.  As Anita went on to point out, there are some teachers who are so afraid of losing the connect with the kids that they talk for 29.5 minutes in a 30 minute class.  As feared, they lose the connect and this has nothing to do with the internet.  Worse than this are the trigger happy teachers who are quick to click the MUTE ALL button.  Anita felt this was most insulting.  If you look up the meaning of "mute" you will realize what we are doing to the kids - reducing them to non-participants in the classroom.  It's the "effective question that leads to an effective lesson", a lively classroom, and discussions.  So, please unmute your students - let them ask questions, let them express themselves.

Seven Types of Learning

With the very tight timeline, Anita managed to touch on concepts such as Multiple Intelligences, Lesson Planning and quality questions as the most potent tool for getting critical thinking into the classroom.  She breezed past the most common questions that rely on memorizing and repetition and challenged her listeners (how many teachers were there?) to look at Higher Order Thinking Skills in questioning. Teachers need to focus on recapitulation, discussion, participation and involvement and let the children express themselves.

She reminded us of the little girl in Kabuliwallah who wasn't afraid to ask a thousand questions. She feels that this "Ask away!" attitude has to replace the Correct Answer Syndrome from which our classrooms suffer.  The goal is not to push information across to the children but to make them feel that they have participated in their learning.  A wonderful thought. 

Online Learning, no real difference

While acknowledging that online learning can be vastly different in nature from what teachers are used to in the classroom, Anita reiterated that the psychology and philosophy behind questioning remains the same, only the tools have changed.  

Children are out of touch with socializing and playing with their friends, and missing it.  There is depression building up.  Teachers can help solve this by providing "brain gyms" - and that starts with asking questions.  "Have you understood?" is not a question.  A good question will help the teacher to discover who has understood and what they have understood.

Teacher Orientation

Due to the questions being put forward by the presenter and audience, at one point I felt that the time was just too short to handle the multiple aspects of education and Anita was trying to touch on everything at once. So much so, that I think there was a big digression away from Effective Questioning to teaching, caring and support requirements. I would have been happier had she stayed with making a strong case for the power of effective questioning, with more examples, perhaps.

There definitely has to be a concerted effort to orient teachers and students into a way of thinking that promotes the questioning that will make the classroom interactive and meaningful.  The one sentence that she left me with was, "Children do not really care how much you know, if they know how much you care!" She used the technical word - scaffolding - to indicate how much care and support the teachers have to give the students.

Anita is currently Principal of Delhi Public International School - evidenced by the large number of kids who signed on and posted their presence in the chat!  A few parents asked questions which were picked up by the presenter and answered on the spot. No press screening here!  Delightful.  A good half-hour, well spent and which has prompted me to spend another good hour deconstructing the session here!  Hope you liked it. 

To view the entire programme click here.

My Learnings

• Unmute the kids. There is no such thing as an irrelevant question, so ask away!

• Creative questioning makes critical thinkers, creative questions come from creative and caring teachers.

• Children do not care how much you know, if they know how much you care.

Please do leave your comments on the power of effective questioning in the blog comments. Share the link with friends and colleagues.  Thanks.