CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
One of the major duties of mathematics classroom teacher is to promote thought and inspire inquiry in students and one effective way of doing this is through proper questioning in the classroom. Caram and Davis (2005) emphasized that when teachers’ questions are used correctly, it can enhance students learning by developing critical thinking skills reinforce student understanding correct students misunderstanding, provide feedback for students and enliven classroom discussions. Teachers’ questions are significant values for many instructional purposes eliciting student reflection and challenging deeper student understanding and engagement in the classroom.
According to Croom and Stair (2005) stated that “Classroom questions are best used as diagnostic tools to help indicate student’s academic progress or to assess students critical thinking”. This was supported by Vogler (2005), “questions can monitor comprehension, help make connections to prior learning and can stimulate cognitive growth. Classroom teachers are aware that it is possible to transfer factual knowledge and conceptual understanding through the process of asking questions.
Danielson (1996), “good and skilled classroom questions, when they are carefully crfted and framed engages students in a true exploration of the content and allows the students to exhibit their understanding of the concept”, where as, unskilled classroom questions from the teachers focus on short-answer, low-level questions which just check for students knowledge. Danielson (1996) called theses types of questions as “recitation questions” rather than “indepth discussion questions”. The unskilled classroom questions from the teachers are poor questions, boring, comprehensive to only a few students, narrow and the teacher has a single answer in mind, even when choices are possible.
Unfortunately, although the act of asking questions has the potential to greatly facilitate or influence learning process it may also have the capacity to turn a child off learning if not done properly in the mathematics classroom. for proper teaching to take place in the classroom, a teacher should be able to pose good questions to the students and asking good questions fosters interaction between the teacher and the learners. The teachers good use of classroom questions are designed to develop the cognitive skills of students, facilitate learning and promote reasoning skills of the students in mathematics.
Teachers classroom questions serve many purposes, such as: provoking students and making them listen carefully, analyzing their thoughts and thinking critically, and initiating discussion and reviewing material. The importance of teachers’ classroom questions cannot be underestimated and according to Kawanaka and Stigler (1999), teachers’ classroom questions guide students to discuss problems and derive mathematical concept and procedures thereby functioning to guide students to use mathematical concepts and procedures to solve problems. In mathematics classroom, teachers’ questions are vital components of proper understanding of concepts which is an effective way of learning.
Questioning has been for thousands of years, one of the most popular modes of teaching (Tan, 2007) and research attention has been paid to teacher question (Guan Ery Ho, 2005). According to Ornstein and Lasley (2000P. 184, cited in Bonne and Pritchard, 2007) good questioning is both a methodology and an art. Therefore, is used well it can make a significant contribution to improve teaching and learning. By this study, it is thought that to determine pre-service teachers thought on teacher questioning in effective teaching process can make a contribution to the research educators and teachers education programs.
Teachers questions give the children the opportunity to connect what they know with they needed to examine and reflect on in their own thinking (Fisher, 1995 P. 76) some studies (e.g Durham, 1997) indicate that teachers also view questioning as a basic way to stimulate student thought and to guide the development of knowledge. However, according to McNamara (1994, P. 125) questions are also used to encourage children to express themselves orally. On the other hand, Capel, Leask and Turner (1996) state that teacher should consider questioning to motivate the students. Petty (1993) noted that questioning can also be used to evaluate the learning of students. According to Vogler (2004, 2005) asking questions can have a positive impact on student learning and most teachers are aware that verbal questioning can facilitate student learning. Researchers studying both traditional face to face classroom discourses pointed out that teachers’ questions can facilitate dialogic inquiry as stated by Groenke and Paulus (2007).