DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH!?
(ASSIGNED BLOG RE: QUESTIONING STRATEGIES)

Since beginning to teach a little over a week ago, I've begun to interpret the eight faces that stare back at me as I do what I do at the front of the classroom. There's the face of being completely and totally LOST - the students don't know what island they're on, how they got there, or how to get off. That face means I've screwed up big time, and I need to try again. They obviously do not understand the words that are coming out of my mouth. Then there's the look of slight confusion - one little clarification, and the student is good to go on a concept. Finally, there's the look of utter boredom. This facial expression tells me I've got it, so please move on before I have to start some trouble in here.

When I want to make sure that I know where the students stand on understanding, I don't rely solely on the face-reading abilities that I am slowly developing. I also ask the students throughout the lesson to give me the next step to solve a problem, and I probe for feedback constantly. Since the class consists of only eight students, I do a lot of cold calling. The kids don't seem to mind. The lead teacher did a great job at the beginning of the summer fostering an environment where all the students are engaged in the learning process and are not afraid to get a question wrong.

Despite my attempts to try to gauge the students' understanding, I found myself at times being surprised at some of the concepts that were missed on tests, since when I asked whether everyone understood, they all responded that they did understand. On Wednesday, June 14, during a review for the students' third test, I tried a version of the "Muddiest Part of the Lecture" questioning strategy, which I prefer to call the "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth," questioning strategy. (For those who can't quite place the quote, it was Chris Tucker in Rush Hour, 1998.) I first wrote on the board all the concepts that would be covered on the test. I gave the students a piece of typing paper and told them to fold it in half. I told them to write on one half of the paper what concepts they were confused about, or to write on the paper the numbers of problems on the Test Review handout that they would like to go over and to submit the half of paper to me. I told them to keep the other half of the paper so that if questions arose later in the review, they could submit those. One student wrote about 6 questions from the review. One student wrote 3 concepts and 2 questions. Two students didn't turn in a paper at all. The other students wrote about 2-4 questions on their paper.

I learned a couple of things from this little experiment. One, even the simplest directions must be repeated and emphasized. One student called out a number from his desk, and when I told him he was supposed to write it on the paper and submit it to me, he said that he had already turned in the entire piece of paper. I guess that was partially my fault since I allowed him to submit the whole sheet of paper instead of insisting that he keep half. I also learned that some students will not ask any questions no matter how much they're probed to ask questions. I was a little disappointed that two students didn't write any questions on the paper, especially since neither made an A on the test. I thought that since no one would know who asked what question, the students wouldn't feel the need to act as if they already knew everything. But then again, maybe they thought they knew everything on the test?? I think next time I will require everyone to submit at least one question.