How to Teach Part 14

_Questioning_. The purpose of a question is to serve as a situation which shall arouse to activity certain nerve connections and thus bring a response. Questions, oral or written, are the chief tools used in schools to gain responses. In some situations it is the only means a teacher may have of arousing the response. Psychologically, then, the value of the question must be judged by the response.

Questions may be considered from the point of view of the kind of response they call for. Probably the most common kind of question is the one that calls for facts as answers. It involves memory--but memory of a rote type. It does not require thinking. All drill questions are of this type. The connections aroused are definitely final in a certain order, and the question simply sets off the train of bonds that leads directly to the answer. Another type of question involving the memory process is the one which initiates recall, but here thought is active. The answer cannot be gained in a mechanical way, but selection and rejection are involved. The answer is to be found by examining past experience, but only in a thoughtful way. Questions which call for comparison form another type. These may vary from those which involve the comparison of sense material to those which involve the comparison of policies or epochs. Words, characters, plots, definitions, plans, subjects--everything with which intellectual life deals is open to comparison. Comparison is one of the steps in the process of reasoning, and hence questions of this type are extremely important. Then there are the questions which arouse the response of a.n.a.lysis. These questions vary among themselves according to the type of a.n.a.lysis needed, whether piecemeal attention or a.n.a.lysis due to varying concomitants. The former drives the thinker through gradual recognition and elimination of the known elements to a consciousness of the only partly known. The latter, by attracting the attention to unvarying factors in the changing situations, forces out the new and until then unknown element. Some questions require judgment as a response. The judgment may be one concerning relationships, or concerning worth or value, or be merely a matter of definition--all questions calling for criticism are of this type. In any case this type of question involves the thought element at its best. The question requiring organization forms another type. There is no sharp line of division between these types of questions. No one of them should be used exclusively. Some of them imply operations of a simple type as well as the particular response demanded by that form.

For instance, some of the questions involving a.n.a.lysis imply comparison and recalling. A judgment question might call for all the simple processes noted above and others as well. The responses then vary in complexity and difficulty. The order of advance in both complexity and difficulty of the response is from the mere drill question to the judgment question.

Another type of question is the one which desires appreciation as a response. This question is one of the most difficult to frame, for it must tend to inhibit the critical att.i.tude and by means of the a.s.sociations it arouses or its own suggestive power get the appreciative response. Questions of this type often call for constructive imagery as a means to the desired end. Some questions are directive in their tendency. They require as response an att.i.tude or set of the mind. They set the child thinking in this direction rather than that. In a sense they are suggestive, but they suggest the line of search rather than the response. A final type of question is akin to the one just discussed--the question whose response is further questions. Here again the response desired is an att.i.tude, but in this case it is more than an att.i.tude, it is also a definite response that shall come in the form of questions. The questions of a good teacher should result in students asking questions both of people and of books. These last three types of questions are perhaps the most difficult of all. Because of their complexity and subtlety they often miss fire and fail of their purpose.

Properly handled they are among the most powerful tools a teacher has.

The type of question used must vary, not only with the particular group of children, and the type of lesson, but also with the subject.

Questions that would be the best type in mathematics might not be so good for an art lesson. The kinds of questions used must be adapted to the particular situation.

Psychologically a question is valuable not only in accordance with the kind of response it gets, but also in proportion to the readiness of the response. A question that is of such a character that the response is hazy, stumbling, hesitating--a question that brings no clear-cut response because the child does not understand what is wanted, is a poor question. This does not at all mean that the right response must always come immediately. Some of the best questions are put with the intention of forcing the child to realize that he can't answer--that he doesn't know. If that type of response comes to that question, it is the best possible answer. Nor need the whole answer come immediately. For instance, in many of the judgment questions the thinking process aroused may take some time before the judgment is reached, and meanwhile several partial answers may be given. But if the question asked started the process, without waste of time in trying to find out what it meant, the question is good. With these explanations, then, the second qualification of a good question is that it secures the appropriate response readily. In order to do this, these factors must be considered: First, the principle of apperception must be recognized. Every question must deal with material that is on a level with the stage of development of the one questioned. Not only so, but the question must connect somewhere with the learner's experience. This means a recognition also of individual differences. The question must also be couched in language that can be understood easily by the one questioned. To have to try to understand the language of the question as well as the question, results in divided attention and delayed responses. Second, the question should be clear and definite. A question that has these characteristics will challenge the attention of the cla.s.s. It is directed straight at the point at issue, and no time will be lost in wondering what the question means, or in trying two or three tentative answers. Third, the younger the child, the simpler the question must be. With little children, to be good a question may involve only one idea, or relationship. The amount involved in the question, its scope and content, must be adapted to the mental development of the learner. It is only a mature thinker who can carry simultaneously two or three points of issue, or possibilities.

Fourth, the question to gain a ready response must be interesting. Not only must the lesson as a whole be interesting, but the questions themselves must have the same quality. Dull questions can kill an otherwise good lesson. The form of the question is thus a big factor in gaining a ready response. All the qualities which gain involuntary attention can be used in framing an interesting question--novelty, exaggeration, contrast, life, color, and so on.

The third point to be considered in determining a good question is whether or not it satisfies the demands of economy. This demand is a fair one both from the standpoint of the best use of the time at the disposal of the learner, and also from the standpoint of the best means of gaining the greatest development on the part of the learner in a given time. The number of questions asked thus enters in as a factor.

When a teacher asks four or five questions when one would serve the same purpose, she is not only wasting time, but the child is not getting the opportunity to do any thinking and therefore is not developing. Recent studies on the actual number of questions asked in a recitation point to the conclusion that economy both of time and in development is being seriously overlooked. Economy in response may also be brightened by preserving a logical sequence between questions. It is a matter of fact in psychology that a.s.sociations are systematized about central ideas; it is also a fact that the set of the mind, in this direction rather than that, is characteristic of all work. Logical sequence, then, makes use of both these facts--both of the systematization of ideas and of the mental att.i.tude.

The fourth test of good questioning is the universality of its appeal.

Some questions which are otherwise good appeal but to comparatively few in the cla.s.s. This, of course, means that responses are being gained but from few. The best questioning stimulates most of the cla.s.s; all members of the cla.s.s are working. In order to secure this result the questions must be properly distributed over the cla.s.s. The bright pupils must not be allowed to do all the work; or, on the other hand, all the attention of the teachers must not be given to the dull pupils. Not only should the questions be well distributed, but they must vary according to the individual ability of the particular child. This has already been emphasized in dealing with readiness of response. Many a lesson has been unsuccessful because the teacher gave too difficult a question to a dull child, and while she was struggling with him, she lost the rest of the cla.s.s. The reverse is also true, to give a bright child a question that requires almost no thinking means that a mechanical answer will be given and no further activity stimulated. The extent to which all the cla.s.s are mentally active is one measure of a good question.

QUESTIONS

1. Give an example of a lesson which you have taught which was predominantly inductive. Show how you proceeded from the discovery of the problem to your pupils to the solution attained.

2. What is involved in the "step" of presentation?

3. Why may we not consider the several "steps" of the inductive lesson as occurring in a definite and mutually exclusive sequence?

4. In what respect is the procedure in a deductive lesson like that which you follow in an inductive lesson?

5. Show how verification is an important element in both inductive and deductive lessons.

6. Give ill.u.s.trations of successful drill lessons and make clear the reason for the degree of success achieved.

7. What measures have you found most advantageous in securing speed in drill work?

8. What are the elements which make for success in an appreciation lesson?

9. Upon what grounds and to what extent can lecturing be defended as a method of instruction?

10. What may be the relation between a good recitation lesson and the solution of a problem? Growth in power of appreciation?

11. For what purposes should examinations be given? When should examinations be given?

12. When are questions which call for facts justified?

13. Why are questions which call for comparisons to be considered important?

14. Why is it important to phrase questions carefully?

15. Why should a teacher ask some questions which cannot be answered immediately?

16. What criteria would you apply in testing the questions which you put to your cla.s.s?

17. Write five questions which in your judgment will demand thinking upon some topic which you plan to teach to your cla.s.s.

XIV. HOW TO STUDY

The term study has been used very loosely by both teachers and children.

As used by teachers it frequently meant something very different from what children had in mind when they used it. Further, teachers themselves have often used the term in connection with mental activities which, technically speaking, could not possibly come under that head.

Much confusion and lack of efficient work has been the result. Recently various attempts have been made to give the term study a more exact meaning. McMurry defines it as "the work that is necessary in the a.s.similation of ideas"--"the vigorous application of the mind to a subject for the satisfaction of a felt need." In other words, study is thinking. Psychologically, what makes for good thinking makes for good study. Study is controlled mental activity working towards the realization of a goal. It is the adaptation of means to end, in the attempt to satisfy a felt need. It involves a definite purpose or goal, which is problematic, the selection and rejection of suggestions, tentative judgments, and conclusion. The mind of the one who studies is active, vigorously active, not in an aimless fashion, but along sharply defined lines. This is the essential characteristic of all study.

There are, however, various types of study which differ materially from each other according to the subject matter or to the type of response required. Some study involves comparatively little thinking. The directed activity must be present, but the choice, the judgment, may need to be exercised only in the beginning when methods of procedure need to be selected, and later on, perhaps, when successes or failures need to be noted and changes made in the methods accordingly. Another type of study needs continual thinking of the most active sort all the way through the period. Just the proportion of the various factors involved in thinking which is present at any given study period must be determined by the response. A type of study which would be completely satisfactory for one subject needing one response, would be entirely inadequate for another subject needing another response. To ill.u.s.trate, in some cases the study must deal with habit formation. The need felt is to learn a mechanical response of a very definite nature to this situation; the problem is to get that response. The thinking would come in in deciding upon the method, in watching for successes, in criticizing progress, and in judging when the end was obtained. A large part of the time spent in study would, however, need to be spent in repet.i.tion, in drill. Of such character is study of spelling, of vocabularies, of dates; study in order to gain skill in adding, or speed in reading, or to improve in writing or sewing. Much of habit formation goes on without study--in fact, to some it may seem to be ludicrous to use the word "study" in connection with the formation of habits. It is just because the study elements in connection with responses of this type have been omitted that there has been such a tremendous waste of time in teaching children to form right habits. This omission also explains the poor results, for the process has been mechanical and blind on the part of the student. At the other extreme in types of study is that which can be used in science and mathematics, in geography and history, when the major part of the time is given to selecting and rejecting suggestions and seems required by the goal. In this type the habituation, the fixing of the material, comes largely as a by-product of the factors used in the thinking.

Study may, then, be cla.s.sified according as the response required is physical habit, memory, appreciation, or judgment. These types overlap, no one of them can exist absolutely alone, but it is possible to name them according to the response. Study may also be cla.s.sified into supervised study, or unsupervised study, into individual or group study.

We might also cla.s.sify study as it has to do with books, with people, or with materials. The term has been rather arbitrarily applied to activities that dealt with books, but surely much study is accomplished when people are consulted instead of books, and also when the sources of information or the standards are flowers, or rocks, or textiles.

Study, then, is a big term, including many different varieties of activities, of varying degrees of difficulty and responsibility. It cannot possibly be taught all at once, according to one method, at one spot in the school curriculum. Power to study is of very gradual growth.

It must proceed slowly, from simple to complex types. From easy to difficult problems, from situations where there is close supervision and direction to situations where the student a.s.sumes full responsibility.

Knowing how to study is not an inborn gift--it does not come as a matter of intuition, nor does it come in some mysterious way when the child is of high school age. It is governed by the laws of learning, or readiness, exercise, and effect, just as truly as any other ability is.

If adults are to know how to study, if they are to use the technique of the various kinds of study efficiently, children must be taught how. Nor can we expect the upper grammar grade or the high school teachers to do this. Habits of study must be formed just as soon as the responses to which it leads are needed. Beginning down in the kindergarten with study in connection with physical and mental habits, the child should be taught how to study. The type must gradually become more complex; he must pa.s.s from group to individual study, from supervised to unsupervised, but it must all come logically, from step to step. True, it is not easy to teach how to study. A careful a.n.a.lysis of the various types with their peculiar elements should be a help. First, however, there are some general principles that underlie all study which must be discussed.

Study must have, as has already been stated, a purpose. The individual, in order to exercise his mind in a controlled way, must have an aim. The clearer and more definite the aim, whether it be little or big, the better the study will be. From the beginning, then, children must be taught to make sure they know what they are going to do before beginning to study. It may be necessary to teach them in the early grades to say to themselves or to the cla.s.s just what they are going to accomplish in the study. Teach them when the lesson is a.s.signed to write down in their books just what the problem for study is. Warn them never to begin study without definitely knowing the aim--if they don't know it, make them realize that the first thing to do is to find out the purpose by asking some one else. Better no study at all than aimless or misdirected activity, because of lack of purpose.

No study worthy of the name can be carried on without interest. The child who studies well must be brought to realize this. The value of interest can be brought home to him by having him compare the work he does, the time he spends, and how he feels when studying something in which he has a vital interest with the results when the topic is uninteresting. Of course, as will be pointed out later, much of the gaining of interest lies in the hands of the teacher necessarily, but if the child realizes the need of it in efficient study, some responsibility will rest on him to find an interest if it is not already there. No matter how expert the teacher may be, because of individual differences no problem will be equally interesting to all pupils in itself, and no incentive will have an equal appeal to all children.

Therefore children should be taught to find interest for themselves.

Certain devices can be suggested, such as working with another child and competing with him, "making believe" in study, and finding some connection with something in which he is interested, working against his own score, and the like.

Not only do the demands of economy require that the topic of study receive concentrated attention, but the results themselves are better when such is the case. Half an hour of concentrated work gives much better results than an hour of study with scattered attention. An hour spent when half an hour would do is thus not only wasteful of time, but is productive of poorer results and bad habits of study as well.

Children need to be taught this from the beginning. Much time is wasted even by mature university students when they suppose themselves to be studying. Children can be taught to ignore distractions--to train themselves to keep their eyes on the book, despite the fact that the door is opened, or a seat mate is looking for a book. They should be encouraged to set themselves time limits in various subjects and adhere to them. It is economical to follow a regular schedule in study--either in the school or at home. Let each child make out his study schedule and keep to it. Teach children that the best work is done when they are calm and steady. That either excitement or worry is a hindrance. Therefore they should avoid doing their studying under those conditions, and should do all they can to remove such conditions. Training children to do their best and then not to worry would not only improve the health of many upper grammar grade and high school children, but would also improve their work.

Study requires a certain critical att.i.tude, a checking up of results against the problem set. In order to be efficient in study a child should know when he has reached the solution, when the means have been adapted to the end, when he has reached the goal. This checking up, of course, means habits of self-criticism and standards. Sometimes all that is necessary is for the child to be made conscious of this fact so that he can test himself, for instance, in memory work, or in solving a problem in mathematics. On the other hand, sometimes he will have to compare his work with definite standards, such as the Thorndike Handwriting Scale, or the Hillegas Composition Scale.[19] In other instances, he will have to search for standards. He will need to know what his cla.s.smates have accomplished, what other people think, what other text-books say, and so on. Gradually he must be made conscious that study is a controlled activity, and unless it reaches the goal, and the correct one, it is useless. He must be made to feel that the responsibility to see that such results are reached rests on him.

These, then, are the general factors involved in all types of study, and therefore are fundamental to good habits of study: a clear purpose; vital interest of some kind; concentrated attention, and a critical att.i.tude. There are further additional suggestions which are peculiar to the special type of study.

In study which is directed to habit formation, the student should be taught the danger of allowing exceptions. He should know the possibility of undoing much good work through a little carelessness. Preaching won't bring this home to him--it must come through having his attention attracted to such an occurrence in his own work or in that of his mates.

After that knowledge of the actual experiences of others, athletes, musicians, and others will help to intensify the impression. The value of repet.i.tion as one of the chief factors in habit formation must be emphasized. The child should be encouraged to make opportunities for practice both in free minutes during the school program, and outside of school. He must be taught in habit formation to practice the new habit in the way it is to be used: practicing the sounds of letters in words, the writing movements in writing words, swimming movements in the water, and so on. Practicing the whole movements, not trying to gain perfection in parts of it and then putting it together. It is important also that the learner be taught to keep his attention on the result to be obtained, instead of the movements. He should attend to the swing of the club, the lightness of the song, the cut the saw is making, the words he is writing, instead of the muscle movements involved. In breaking up bad habits it is sometimes necessary to concentrate on a part or a movement, when that is the crux of the error, but in general it is a bad practice when forming a new habit. The child must also learn to watch the habit of skill he is forming for signs of improvement and then to try to find out the reason for it. It has been proved experimentally that much of the improvement in habits of skill comes unconsciously to the learner, and necessarily so, but that in order for the improvement to continue and be effective, it must become conscious. Of course, at the beginning and for a long time it must be the teacher's duty to point out the improvement and to help the child to think out the reasons for it, but if he is to learn to study by himself the child must finally come to habits of self-criticism which will enable him to recognize success or failure in his own work. In all this discussion of teaching children to study it must be constantly borne in mind that it is a gradual process--and only very slowly does the child become conscious of the technique. Which elements can be made conscious, how much he can be left to himself, must depend on his maturity and previous training. In time, however, he should be able to apply them all--for only by so doing will he become capable of independent study.

When the study is primarily concerned with memory responses, all the elements which have just been discussed in connection with habit apply, for, after all, memory is but mental habit. There are other factors which enter into and which should be used in this type of study. First, the child should realize the need for understanding the material that is to be learned, before beginning to memorize it. He will then be taught to read the entire a.s.signment through--look up difficult words and references, master the content, whether prose or poetry, whether the learning is to be verbatim or not, before doing anything further.

Second, he will need to know the value of the modified whole method of learning, as well as its difficulties. If in the supervised periods of study and in cla.s.s work, this method has been followed, it is very easy to make him conscious of it and willing to adopt it when he comes to do independent study. Third, he must be taught to distribute his time so that he does not devote too long a stretch to one subject. The value of going over work in the morning, after having studied the night or two nights before, should be emphasized. Also the value of beginning on a.s.signments some time ahead, even if there is not time to finish them.

Fourth, the child should be taught not to stop his work the minute he can give it perfectly. The need for overlearning, for permanent retention, must be made clear. How much overlearning is necessary, each child should find out for himself. Fifth, the value of outlining material as a means of aiding memory must be stressed. Sixth, the child should be taught to search for a.s.sociations, connections of all types, in order to help himself remember facts. He might even be encouraged to make up some mnemonic device as an aid if these measures fail. If instead of simply trying to hammer material in by mere repet.i.tion children had been taught in their study to consciously make use of the other elements in a good memory, much time would be saved. But the responsibility should rest finally on the child to make use of these helps. The teacher must make him conscious of them, sometimes from their value by experiment, and then teach him to use them himself.

Much less can be done as a matter of conscious technique when the occasion of study is to further appreciation. A few suggestions might be offered. First, the child should be taught the value of a.s.sociating with those who do appreciate in the line in which he is striving for improvement. He should be encouraged to consciously a.s.sociate with them when opportunities for appreciation come. Second, he should know the need for coming in contact with the objects of appreciation if true feeling is to be developed. It is only by mingling with people, reading books, listening to music, that appreciation in those fields can be developed. Third, the value of concrete imagery and of connections with personal experience in arousing emotional tone should be emphasized. The child might be encouraged to consciously call up images and make connections with his own experience during study.