Questioning Techniques for Use in the Elementary School Classroom is a video of a student teacher using questions as an instructional method in a fifth grade social studies classroom. The video is a minute and twenty-one seconds in length. It is accompanied by Learning Objectives, Discussion Questions, Textbooks and Related Resources, Transcripts, Related Media, and Exchange Teaching Ideas sections on the Mindgate Media webpage.
The learning goals are to demonstrate effective questioning techniques that include content, encourage students to listen, avoid teacher domination, and to promote student interaction.
Target Student Population:
Preservice teachers and teacher educators involved in assesment and measurement, social studies, and teaching methods classes for elementary education would be interested in the video.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Knowledge of effective questioning techniques is needed to recognize and critique the video. A free Mindgate Media account is also needed to access the Discussion Questions and other features.
Type of Material:
The learning material is listed as a presentation. It can also be used as an assessment tool if a questions are developed to critique the video as suggested by the site's Learning Objectives section.
The video can be used in class during a lecture to demonstrate a technique or as a team assignment in which students critique the questioning techniques in the video.
Viewable at youtube.com. Speakers or headphones are needed to hear the video.
Evaluation and Observation
The video shows a student teacher in an actual classroom teaching a lesson. It is a powerful visual depiction which can illustrate a real- life scenario more accurately than a textbook description. It also shows how students respond to questioning during a lecture and the type of information that can be gleaned from questioning.
The video's content nor does the accompanying resources do not provide pre-quisite knowledge to be able to carry out the learning goals or advance learning in the discipline.
Since this is an actual classroom video, the focus is on the teacher so student answers are not always clear and background noise can be distracting.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Teacher educators can use the video after explaining how questioning techniques can be used in classrooms, what are good questioning techniques, and what are ineffective questioning techniques. Visual ques will also need to be explained in advance to preservice teachers. The material can be integrated into the curriculum and pedagogy of a methodology class or an assessments class.
The video was brief and can not be used as a stand alone tool. The learning goals are not identifiable by watching the video. All of the learning objectives listed such as students listening to each other and students interacting with each other were not present in the video. An account is needed to see accompanying materials.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
The video is accompanied by a transcript which translates both the teacher questions and the student answers so that any responses that were unclear are clarified.
Clicking on the video opens it without buffering. The accompanying materials have hyperlinks allowing the user to view them. There is a limited amount of material that can be viewed without setting up an account.
The learning objectives outlined on the website state that “less effective techniques” can be critiqued by student teachers; however, they do explain whether any of the techniques used in the video were of the “less effective” type. The video is a little dark and difficult to hear, but transcripts are provided.