In a conventional teaching situation, a lecturer may use a wide range of questioning techniques aimed at helping students to become active learners. In distance learning, students are often isolated and have limited opportunities for interaction in a social learning environment. Hence, learning strategies in distance learning need to be structured…

A qualitative study analyzed the kind of questions that second graders posed for discussion when the only directive was to ask anything that seemed important or interesting. Subjects, students in a second-grade classroom in Athens, Georgia, represented a cross section of their community. They were approximately equally divided in regard to race,…

Despite nearly universal agreement that students need to do more, think more, and be more active in the classroom, most classrooms are still firmly teacher centered. While teachers use various questioning strategies to develop and enhance critical thinking, historically they are the generators of the questioning process. Thus, many students are…

In this study, teacher language was described at the beginning and end of a school year. A third-grade teacher's language directed toward the entire class of 20 students as well as toward a group of 5 language-impaired children within that class was examined separately. The teacher's language content, form and usage were analyzed separately from…

A study examined how many and what kind of questions appear in elementary science and social studies textbooks and teachers' manuals. Approximately 7500 questions from fourth and fifth grade science and social science textbooks from three major publishers were classified according to the following characteristics: (1) type of cognitive demand; (2)…

This book is intended to aid high school and college instructors in designing and teaching units or courses in the fundamentals of both informational and employment interviewing. The communication skills considered in the book will aid students in understanding and handling important interviewing situations that they will encounter in every job…

This discussion of the design of user-initiated help systems in computers focuses on the information that users actively seek to help them with their tasks, with emphasis on how to help users ask the questions that will bridge the gap between the initial internal (mental) form of the query and their information need as expressed by the system.…

Many treatments of teacher questioning in reading and literature have defined teacher questioning as a cognitive process. Emanating from a reading comprehension perspective, this view of questioning argues that asking a variety of higher level questions will lead students from literal to more inferential levels of text understanding. Approaches to…

An adaptation of the Foreign Service Institute's (FSI) oral interview test for oral language proficiency developed for use at the American Institute of Musical Studies' (AIMS) summer vocal institute in Austria to determine students' improvement in German language is discussed. The reasons for its selection over other major comparable tests are…

Questioning strategies, whether teacher- or student-generated, can be a major tool in developing reading comprehension. Teachers can maximize the benefits of teacher directed questioning by (1) providing clues before providing answers to questions, (2) acknowledging appropriate responses with two or three seconds of eye contact, (3) allowing…

A system for categorizing components of geometry class discussions is described. The unit of observation is the teacher question; responses are coded at four cognitive levels. The system is easier to use than many in the literature; use of it can help teachers develop questioning techniques. (SD)

Most questions in the mathematics classroom deal with memorization and learning, and have one correct answer. Suggestions for using three other types of questions identified by Glasser (SCHOOLS WITHOUT FAILURE) are provided. Activities discussed include tangrams, attribute blocks, pattern recognition, and games. (SD)

A study determined what constitutes an illegal pre-employment question, reviewed current laws and literature on the subject, and determined the prevalence of illegal questions asked by organizations. Except in the case of specific statutory law, there is no precise way to define what constitutes an illegal question; however, state and federal…

This fastback concentrates on writing technically correct test items that are compatible with the teacher's instructional objectives. The introductory chapter touches on some of the problems associated with preparing classroom tests. The second chapter outlines five steps in preparing a test according to the "Plan-Write" System: (1) prepare a…