INTERACTION
SKILLS
Effective use of communication skills by both
instructors and students is conducive to the development
of positive interaction in the classroom. In order to
have successful exchanges between instructors and
students:
- Students should feel free to ask questions of the
instructor and their peers.
- Students should feel free to answer questions.
- Students should not feel threatened by giving an
incorrect response.
In this section we will consider some of the
components of successful interactions including:
- Physical setting.
- Instructor
attitude.
- Hints for calling on
students to maximize student participation.
- Wait-time after
asking questions.
- Handling student
responses to questions.
- Responding to
students' questions.
The instructor needs to be aware of the acoustics of
the room in which he teaches. Can students hear you when
you ask a question? Can students hear other students ask
and answer questions?
- If you teach in a large lecture hall and want to
foster participation, it is a good idea to move
students close to each other and close to the
front of the room.
- Facilitate interaction in a small seminar group
by arranging students in a circle so that they
face each other.
- In a lab setting make sure students do not begin
working on their own until you have finished the
lecture/discussion part of the session. It is
difficult for students to interact if they are
not attentive or if other students are using
equipment.
An important aspect of atmosphere is "attending
behavior" or what an instructor does while a student
answers a questions. Generally the instructor should be
listening to the student, encouraging him to continue,
and helping to focus the attention of the class on the
student who is responding to the question. This can be
accomplished in several ways:
- Maintain eye contact with the student answering.
Some instructors find that they also glance
around the room from time to time to determine
whether class members are listening.
- Use nonverbal gestures to indicate your
understanding, confusion, or support--head
nodding, facial expression, hand gestures which
signal the student to continue, or physical
stance which indicate that you are thinking about
the student's answer.
- Listen to the student! Do not interrupt even if
you think the student is heading toward an
incorrect answer. At times a student may realize
his own mistake. On other occasions you may
simply have misunderstood where the student was
going with his answer. Even on the frequent
occasions when a student does reach an incorrect
answer the other students may learn as much from
the incorrect response as from a correct one.
Furthermore, interrupting students does not
create an atmosphere which encourages
participation. You might try using some of these
active listening suggestions:
- Wait for a second or two following a
student response to be sure that you have
listened to everything and that the
student has finished talking.
- You might wish to paraphrase a long
answer and check with the student to be
sure your perception of his response is
accurate. This technique, when
judiciously applied, makes students aware
that you are listening.
- Use the student response to lead to the
next question or to make a point. Again,
this demonstrates that you are listening.
- While listening to the student try to
determine whether you do understand his
point. If you don't understand, ask for
more information of explanation.
- Listen for the content of what the
student is saying, not simply for
expected jargon or key phrases.
- Focus your attention on the student, not
on what you intend to do next (i.e., ask
a question, or end the class).
- Call students by their names as opposed to
pointing in their general direction. This avoids
confusion as to who was called upon and also
helps create a positive climate where students
feel you know them as individuals.
- Ask questions of the entire class and try to
encourage all students to participate. The
advantage of calling on only volunteers is that
it may be less threatening. A disadvantage of
calling on only volunteers is that a small number
of students will be answering all your questions.
It is possible to call on nonvolunteers in a
nonthreatening manner by:
- In order to encourage nonparticipants, call on
specific students to answer questions. You can
phrase a question, then call on the student. If
you call the student's name first, the rest of
the class may not listen to the question.
- Make an attempt to randomly select students to
respond. Try not to follow any set pattern when
calling on students. For example, if you call on
each student in a row, students learn to listen
only when it's close to their turn to answer.
- Try to avoid repeating all student responses.
Teacher repetition causes students to learn to
listen to you, not their fellow students. In
addition, hearing each response twice is boring.
- Beware of the student who dominates in class by
asking or answering all the questions. Try to
encourage other students to respond by suggesting
others volunteer or by calling on nonvolunteers.
- Give students an opportunity to ask questions. Do
not use "Any questions?" as your only
form of feedback from students. Sometimes
students are so confused they cannot even
formulate a question. In addition many students
will not participate because they do not want to
make mistakes in front of their peers.
- Avoid asking all of your questions at the end of
the session. If a student was lost at the
beginning, he has missed an entire session by the
time you have asked a question. Students may also
be less willing to answer at the end of the
session as they are getting ready to leave.
- Avoid looking down at notes after asking a
question. You should be looking for volunteers
and noting confusion or understanding of
students.
- Your nonverbal reactions should complement your
verbal responses. For example, it is usually
ineffective to say "good point" while
looking away or reading notes.
One factor which can have powerful effects on student
participation is the amount of time an instructor pauses
between asking a question and doing something else
(calling on a student or rewording the question).
Research on classroom questioning and information
processing indicates that students need at least three
seconds to comprehend a question, consider the available
information, formulate an answer, and begin to respond.
In contrast, the same research established that on the
average a classroom teacher allows less than one second
of wait-time.
After teachers were trained to allow three to five
seconds of wait-time the following significant changes in
their classrooms occurred:
- The number of students who failed to respond when
called on decreased.
- The number of unsolicited but appropriate
responses increased.
- The length of student responses increased.
- The number of student statements where evidence
was used to make inferences increased.
- The number of responses from students identified
by the teacher as less able increased.
- The number of student-to-student interactions
increased.
- The number of student questions increased. (Rowe,
1974)
Allowing wait-time after a student response or
question also produced significant changes in classroom
interaction. The most notable change was that the
instructor made fewer teaching errors characterized by
responding illogically or inappropriately to a student
comment.
On the other hand, too much wait-time can also be
detrimental to student interaction. When no one seems to
be able to answer a question, more wait-time will not
necessarily solve the problem. Experts say that waiting
more than 20-30 seconds is perceived as punishing by
students. The amount of wait-time needed in part depends
upon the level of question the instructor asks and
student characteristics such as familiarity with content
and past experience with the thought process required.
Generally lower-level questions require less
wait-time, perhaps only three seconds. Higher-level
questions may require five seconds or more. With
particularly complex higher-level questions some
instructors tell student to spend two or three minutes
considering the question and noting some ideas. Other
instructors allow five to ten seconds of thinking time
and then ask students what processes they are using to
investigate the questions; this strategy makes students
aware that thought process is at least as important as an
answer and that alternative processes can be applied to
arrive at an answer to the same question.
An important aspect of classroom interaction is the
manner in which the instructor handles student responses.
When an instructor asks a question, students can either
respond, ask a question, or give no response. If the
student responds or asks a question, the instructor can
use one of the following recommended questioning
strategies: rein-force, probe, refocus, redirect. If the
student does not respond the instructor can use either a
rephrase or redirecting strategy. A description of each
strategy follows:
- Reinforcement. The instructor should
reinforce in a positive way student responses and
questions in order to encourage future
participation. The instructor can reinforce by
making positive statements and using positive
nonverbal communication. Proper nonverbal
responses include smiling, nodding, and
maintaining eye contact, while improper nonverbal
responses include looking at notes while students
speak, looking at the board or ruffling papers.
The
type of reinforcement provided will be determined
by:
- The correctness of the answer. If a
student gives an answer which is off
target or incorrect, the instructor may
want to briefly acknowledge the response
but not spend much time on it and then
move to the correct response.
- The number of times a student has
responded. Instructors may want to
provide a student who has never responded
in class with more reinforcement than
someone who responds often.
CAUTION: Vary reinforcement techniques between
various verbal statements and nonverbal
reactions. Try not to overuse reinforcement in
the classroom by overly praising every student
comment. Students begin to question the sincerity
of reinforcement if every response is reinforced
equally or in the same way.
- Probe. Probes are based on student
responses. The initial response of students may
be superficial. The instructor needs to use a
questioning strategy called probing to make
students explore initial comments. Probes are
useful in getting students more involved in
critical analysis of their own and other
students' ideas.
Probes can be used in
different ways. Probes can be used to:
- Analyze a student's statement, make a
student aware of underlying assumptions,
or justify or evaluate a statement.
Example:
Instructor: What are some ways we
might solve the energy crisis?
Student: I would like to see a
greater movement to peak-load pricing by
utility companies.
Instructor: What assumptions are
you making about consumer behavior when
you suggest that solution?
- Help students deduce relationships.
Instructors may ask student to judge the
implications of their statements or to
compare and contrast concepts.
Example:
Instructor: What are some
advantages and disadvantages of having
grades given in courses?
Student 1: Grades can be a
motivator for people to learn.
Student 2: Too much pressure on
grades causes some students to stop
learning, freeze, go blank.
Instructor: If both of those
statements are true, what generalizations
can you make about the relationship
between motivation and learning?
- Have students clarify or elaborate on
their comments by asking for more
information.
Examples:
Instructor: Could you please
develop your ideas further?
Instructor: Can you provide an
example of that concept?
- Student: It was obvious
that the crew had gone
insane.
-
- Instructor: What is the
legal definition of insane?
Student: It was a
violation of due process.
Instructor: Can you
explain why?
- Adjust/Refocus. When a student provides a
response which appears out of context the
instructor can refocus to encourage the student
to tie her response to the content being
discussed. This technique is also used to shift
attention to a new topic.
Example:
Instructor: What does it mean to devalue
the dollar?
Student 1: Um--I'm not really sure, but
doesn't it mean that, um, like say last year the
dollar could buy a certain amount of goods and
this year it could buy less--does that mean it
devalued?
Instructor: Well, let's talk a little bit
about another concept, and that is inflation.
Does inflation affect your dollar that way?
- Redirect. When a student responds to a
question, the instructor can ask another student
to comment on his statement. One purpose of using
this technique is to enable more students to
participate. This strategy can also be used to
allow a student to correct another student's
incorrect statement or respond to another
student's question.
Examples:
Instructor: Bill, do you agree with
Mark's comment?
Instructor: From your experience,
Roger, does what Carol said seem true?
Instructor: Blake, can you give me an
example of the concept that Pat mentioned?
- Rephrasing. This technique is used when a
student provides an incorrect response or no
response. Instead of telling the student she is
incorrect or calling upon another student, the
instructor can try one of three strategies:
- The instructor can try to reword the
question to make it clearer. The question
may have been poorly phrased.
Example:
Instructor: What is neurosis?
Student 1: (No response).
Instructor: What are the
identifying characteristics of a neurotic
person?
- The instructor can provide some
information to help students come up with
the answer.
Example: Instructor:
How far has the ball fallen after 3
seconds, Ann?
Student: I have no idea.
Instructor: Well, Ann, how do we
measure distance?
- The instructor can break the question
down into more manageable parts.
Example:
Instructor: What is the epidemiology of
polio?
Student: I'm not sure.
Instructor: What does
"epidemiology" mean?
There are many ways in which an instructor can respond
to questions from students. However, all strategies begin
with this important step:
LISTEN TO THE STUDENT'S QUESTION.
This is another time to use your active listening
skill (See Instructor Attitude).
After you are certain you understand the question, be
sure that other students have heard and understood the
question. Strategies from this point include:
- Answer the question yourself. This strategy is
best when you have little time remaining in
class. The disadvantage of this approach is that
you do not encourage student-to-student
interaction or independent learning.
- Redirect the question to the class. This strategy
helps to encourage student-to-student interaction
and to lessen reliance on the instructor for all
information.
- Attempt to help the student answer his own
question. This may require prompting through
reminders of pertinent previously learned
information. Or this strategy may require you to
ask the student a lower level question or a
related question to begin his thought process.
The advantage of this strategy, as in
redirecting, is that the student may learn the
process of searching for answers to his own
questions rather than relying on the teacher. The
risk is that the process can be embarrassing or
so threatening that the student will be too
intimidated to ask questions in the future.
Obviously some human compassion is called for
when using this strategy.
- Ask the student to stop after class to discuss
the question. This strategy is most appropriate
when a student raises complicated tangential
questions or when a student is obviously the only
one who does not understand a point and a simple
answer does not clarify the point. Even in these
situations there are risks in using this
strategy. Students may be intimidated from
raising questions in class. The instructor may
think that only the questioning student does not
understand when actually a number of students are
having the same problem.
- Refer the student to a resource where she can
find the answer.
- Defer the question until a more appropriate time
but NOT THE QUESTION AND THE STUDENT; RETURN TO
THE QUESTION at an appropriate time.
No matter
which strategy you use you should return to the
student after addressing the questions and
determine whether the response has satisfied the
student.
If you don't know the answer to a student
question NEVER FAKE AN ANSWER. Admit that you
cannot answer the question and then select one of
these strategies or others you find appropriate:
- Ask whether someone in the class can
answer the question. Most times after
class you should follow this with an
attempt to determine whether the
information provided was accurate or
based on sound reasoning and credible
sources.
- Either propose a plan for obtaining
evidence for answering the question or
ask the students to suggest how the
question could be investigated.
- If possible, suggest a resource where the
student can find information. The
resource may be written material, another
faculty or staff member, a student, or
someone from the community.
- Volunteer to find the answer yourself and
report back to the class. Make sure you
actually do return with the answer if you
choose this option.
CONTENTS
- Foreword
- Levels and Types of
Questions
- Bloom's Taxonomy
- Lower and Higher Level Questions
- Open and Closed Questions
- Planning Questions
- Interaction Skills
- Physical Setting
- Instructor Attitude
- Calling on Students to Maximize Participation
- Wait-Time
- Handling Student Responses
- Responding to Student Questions
- Methods for Assessing
Questioning Skills
- Videotape Self-Review
- Peer-Review
- Colleague-Videotape Review
- Survey on Questioning
- Student Evaluation of Questioning Skills
- Suggestions for Interpreting Collected
Assessments
- Assistance Offered by Instructional Development
- References
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