Managing Difficult Questions during Lessons- The Place of Digital Learning for Teachers

We All Get Asked Unexpected Questions by our Learners

Contrary to popular opinion, teaching is not always a routinised activity. There can be occasional unpredictability especially during lesson instructions. Some teachers tend to assume that their learners are not critical, probing, inquisitive, reflective and logical enough as to ask them any unexpected or critical questions during lessons. Occasionally, however, every teacher depending on the level one teaches at may come across one or two students asking her or him some critical question which the teacher may not be prepared for nor have an immediate answer for. And so,whether a teacher teaches a class that is full of highly proficient, proficient or approaching proficiency learners, there are chances that such a teacher may occasionally be invited by a learner or two to answer a particular probing or critical question. While some teachers who are overly focused on class control and discipline have the habit of dismissing such questions or embarrassing the questioner, there can be better ways of handling such occasions.

What Should be Our Posture?

First, it is important for teachers to admit that despite their professional experience, pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, they may still be deficient in some aspects of the very subject they have taught for a decade or more. Knowledge grows and new discoveries and research findings are being made almost on daily basis in all disciplines. Teachers who are not fond of updating their knowledge by reading journals, articles, published works and open resource materials may lack some current knowledge in the field. Those who are not active in the digital space may also be lacking some vital piece of knowledge in their domain. Teachers ought to appreciate the point that some learners are better exposed to the digital space. In some cases, some learners do have better experience in the digital space than the teachers who teach them. It is possible for some of these students to ask their teachers some critical questions during lesson delivery. How teachers respond to such critical questions is the crux of this piece.

Strategies for Handling Unexpected Questions Asked by Learners during Instruction

One recommended response strategy is for the teacher to admit his or her deficiency when he or she does not have the response immediately. It does not portent weakness; it shows sense of honesty instead. It is one vital confidence and trust building tool teachers must apply. There is no need deceiving, confusing or threatening the learners. A teacher may politely tell learners: Thank you for that important question. However, I do not have the answer immediately. Could you allow me to provide the response to the class at our next meeting?

The common practice of giving back the question to the entire class to attempt it is still good. In other words, instead of dismissing the question, the teacher can seek the view of the rest of the learners on the question and after that provide a validation to the class. The teacher may also lead the learners to think critically by constructing their own knowledge with regard to the question. The teacher could make use of the 5Ws and 1H strategy to guide the learners in exploring the question. Better still, the teacher may want to relate the question to real-life or world scenario or events that the class could relate with in order to attempt a response to it themselves. The teacher may also give back the question to the class in the form of a project to undertake, but after providing some rubric to the learners.

How a Teacher Nearly got Embarrassed by an Unexpected Question Asked by a Learner during a Lesson

This week during our school’s best practice sharing forum, two teachers shared their experienceson how to handle difficult and unexpected questions from students. The first teacher shared with us that he as teacher-mentor, had accompanied his mentee to class for lesson observation by asupervisor from the University of Education, Winneba. In the course of the lesson, a student raised his hand and asked the teacher-mentee a question which both he, the mentor, and the mentee did not have an immediate answer for. Confused, the mentee acted as though he did no hear the question, but the supervisor requested of him to answer the question. Conscious that there could be some embarrassment, the mentor told the class that the question would be answered at another lesson. In a way this was face-saving measure for the teacher and his mentee, but it speaks to how teachers respond to such situations.

How Teachers Can Leverage Digital Tools to Provide Quick Reponses to Learners

The second teacher told the forum that she was teaching modals (necessity and obligation) and a sentence she made became a bone of contention among the students. While some considered the statement as one of necessity, others considered it one of obligation. This elicited some interesting debate in the class. Amidst the debate, one student suggested that the teacher should look up the sentence by using the AI. The teacher said that she went ahead to give her mobile phone to one student to search for the response after she and the class had set some ground rules on how to generate the prompts. According to the teacher, the search proved that she was right. The teacher informed the forum that the learners felt excited that they had used the AI to validate the answer.

Justification of the Use of Digital Tools for Learning

This second experience reveals two interesting things. One, it shows that digital integration in teaching and learning could be as simple sometimes if only teachers show passion and commitment to its use. Second, it shows that when teachers resort to the use of ICT and digitallearning as another mode of learning, it generates excitement and enrichment, among the learners.

Conclusion

By the close of the best practice forum, the teachers agreed that they could resort to the use of their mobile phones in providing immediate responses to difficult questions that may be asked by students without being dismissive, or ashamed about it. The experience by the second teacher underscores the relance of the ongoing digital literacy intervention being organised for public senior high school and senior high technical schools in Ghana by the Ghana Society for Education Technology [GSET] and its partner agencies, National Teaching Council [NTC] and T-TEL.