Questions about All Those Questions Teachers Ask

For some time now my good friend and colleague Larry Spence and I have been discussing the role of questions in the college classroom. The conversation started with concerns over the quantity and quality of questions students ask—those earnest questions about what’s going to be on the exam and gently demanding queries about what the teacher “wants” in almost any kind of written assignment. Those questions are important to students, but they certainly are not the questions of curious learners nor are they the type of questions that motivate learning and intellectual development.

To continue reading, you must be a Teaching Professor Subscriber. Please log in or sign up for full access.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Articles

I have two loves: teaching and learning. Although I love them for different reasons, I’ve been passionate about...

Writers often evoke movies to describe the threats posed by artificial intelligence. Although AI has been around in...

In Rasselas, Samuel Johnson’s philosopher Imlac offers the following bleak assessment of life: “Human life is every where...

Most instructors breathe an inner sigh when they see a roomful of students on laptops in their classroom....
In a 2023 article published in The Hill, Sarah Eaton, an associate professor of education at the University...
Educators play a pivotal role in shaping students’ academic journeys, and their impact in the classroom extends far...

Are you signed up for free weekly Teaching Professor updates?

You'll get notified of the newest articles.

The Teaching Professor Conference 2024

June 7-9, 2024 • New Orleans

Connect with Fellow Educators at The Teaching Professor Conference!