Blog Post 4

     When asked, "What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?",  I immediately thought of when I was in younger grade school.  I was a student that was always scared to answer questions or for the teacher to call of me.  Now that I am older, I see the importance of questions and answers in the classroom.  These sources have also helped me to learn how to be an effective teacher when asking the questions to my students.  
     In the first article I chose, it explains that teachers should know and be able to respond to student's questions effectively.  Asking Questions to Improve Learning teaches great ways for teachers to ask questions as well as respond to the student's answer in a positive way.  This article also teaches to allow the student to respond completely and for the teacher to not interrupt.  Even if the student answers the question wrong, it is important to help the student and not make them feel insecure because they answered wrong.  The teacher should continue to ask more questions and allow classmates to help the student to continue to brainstorm.  This will allow the student to feel more confident and hopefully succeed with the correct answer.
     The second source that I viewed was an article by Ben Johnson called, The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom.  I absolutely enjoyed this read! Ben Johnson gives a simple but great way to ask the students a question in an effective way.  He did some observation in a classroom and saw different ways that the students react when the teacher asks a question.  He says when asking a student a question, the teacher should pause for three seconds before saying a student's name so that the whole classroom is thinking and brainstorming for the answer.  His method of pausing for a few seconds allowed the brainstorming to begin.  I think this is a great idea and I will definitely use this to help my future students interact and be engaged in learning.
     It is important to me, as a future educator to know how and when to ask questions to my students.  I do not want to create an atmosphere where my students are insecure to answer questions in the fear of being wrong or embarrassed like I was in school.  Asking questions in the classroom are important to keep the students interacting and it also helps them to stay on task. Asking questions and having interactive learning causes students to think for themselves. It also creates a more fun and creative learning environment.