Questions and Answers

 

The value of a productive question and answer session cannot be overstated. When enough time and preparation is put into these sessions so that the environment is safe and conducive for learning, great discussions can occur. The teacher can receive real time feedback about the lesson and gain insights into the students’ understandings and misunderstandings through this type of student input. In a high school classroom these question and answer sessions can take many forms and I think the most important thing is to be open to allowing them to happen even when they are not planned.

When I was a teaching assistant I had great leeway in how I conducted my office hour sessions. Some teaching assistants rigidly went through the questions one by one, others had no structure at all and left it open to the students and others were everywhere in between. I designed my sessions to incorporate a couple objectives. First, after having had some experience I realized that the students were encouraged to attend the sessions at any time they were able to. This was sometimes cumbersome as students came in with questions about sections that we already covered. Knowing this I decided there was going to have to be some structure to the sessions as it was not beneficial to go over the questions over and over again. Secondly, I realized that sometimes the students weren’t ready to actually ask their questions—they were still formulating them. They just needed a safe space to work and be encouraged. And finally, I had the responsibility of keeping the discussion moving. Helping them get from question to question. Knowing when they needed to move on regardless of whether they all have the exact right answer or not.

 

My favorite part of these sessions was pulling the laboratory work and the classroom work together. I worked with these students on the laboratory side, but the students knew they were free to bring their classroom work for help as well. It was fantastic to watch them make connections between materials in the different aspects of the class. The type of input from the students in this atmosphere is different than that from a form or a questionnaire. It’s instant “think on your feet” kind of input and there is a respect you earn from the students when you can thrive in that atmosphere.

 

A great example of this atmosphere came from my reinforcing of the concept of limiting reagents to my students. I had about a dozen students in my classroom and I went through my typical overview of what limiting reagents are and I looked at the students and said, “Does that make sense to everyone?” And I got a few quizzical looks and a couple students bravely said, “Nope.” Limiting reagents is the process of understanding how many products you can make depending on how many reagents you have as well as what your chemical reaction is. Ironically, most students can understand chemistry if they wouldn’t get so panicked about the chemistry. Their honest input back that they did not understand allowed me to switch gears and explain the concept again incorporating concepts they were more familiar with such as cooking recipes. This time when I was finished, I received a collective, “Yes” that they all understood.