Stupid Questions

https://604talesofteaching.wordpress.com/tag/stupid-question/

There is no such thing as stupid questions in math class.....I have the above quote in my class information sheets and I encourage students to ask questions, come for help! As Tia Ramos said in her blog post on "Tales of Teaching" There is no such thing as a stupid question.  

As an instructor or student, how many times have you heard that phrase…”There is no such thing as a stupid question”?  I  have said this phrase many times lecturing an introductory workshop.  The reason why I say this phrase is to decrease anxiety in the classroom and encourage students to ask questions.  Many students don’t ask questions in fear of looking stupid or being made fun of by the instructor.  As instructors, we pose this phrase because we want our learners to feel safe and foster that positive learning environment. We also want our learners not to be afraid to ask questions.

Definitely check out her blog post - she cautions against praising questions asked by students and quotes an on-line article by Ginsberg There are No Stupid Questions But...

I quote her observations

 In this thought-provoking on-line article, “There are No Stupid Questions, But…“; the author states that “teachers need to be neutral when responding to a student’s question”. This means the instructor should not give praise to a learner for asking a question.  For example:  A student asks a question.  The instructor gives the student a praise such as “Great question!”.  Ginsburg (2012) states “How could a positive comment like “great question” deter students from asking questions? Simple. If some questions are great, then by implication others are not great. And it’s inevitable that kids will be reluctant to ask questions if they think their questions may not elicit our praise. From their perspective, then, there are indeed stupid questions”.
I have used this phrase many times in my class to encourage questions from learners but have not really considered my actions and it’s implications.  By judging/evaluating the learners’ questions, it actually creates a negative learning environment.  That’s correct.  The positive learning environment that I have been trying to create is ruined by my praise of saying “Great question!”  Even though my intent was pure, the psychological message I am saying to my learners is there are stupid questions if you’re question didn’t garner a “great question” praise.  It’s no wonder learners don’t ask questions in class!  It is because they are intimidated and are fearful of asking a stupid question.
So you can see instructors have to be cautious with praise.  Praises also create extrinsic motivation for learners which robs students of learning values, beliefs and attitudes.  Extrinsic motivation can create situational compliance where the student only learns subject matter for praise rather than independent self-directed learning.  Instructors need to promote intrinsic motivation where the focus is put on the actual learning process.

A simple “Thanks for your question” provides a quick neutral response to the student, which validates their question without evaluating their question. As Ginsburg (2012) states, ” For students to learn to their potential, they need to feel free to ask questions and share their thoughts. And they’ll never feel such freedom unless we as educators value their input rather than just evaluate it”.  

Interesting food for thought!  So this school year I need to amend my "great question" into 

"Thanks for your question"

This makes sense, I like it, I will certainly try to remember to do this!

Of course this is always another side to each viewpoint - here is an interesting blog post by Terri Eichholz  "Actually There is Such a Thing as a Stupid Question" - in her viewpoint it is most often asked by the teacher! Here are some of the stupid questions that she thinks teachers ask

“Weren’t you listening when I gave the directions?”

“Why do I hear people talking?” 

“Could you please speak up?”

“Does that make sense?” 

And her favorite stupidest question ever:

“From now on, when we blow the recess whistle, would you boys please hold your balls?”  I only said it once – back when I was a 5th grade teacher to a bunch of students who kept dribbling basketballs while in line.  Yep, dumb.  But definite proof that stupid questions do exist. 

I am guilty of her first one quite a bit:
 “Weren’t you listening when I gave the directions?”
Or some variation of (such as I just went through all that, weren't you listening? with students around them being exasperated too). But reading over Ms. Eichholz's post I need to read between the lines of their question because

 If a student is asking me about something I just went over, he or she either didn’t hear it, can’t remember it, or doesn’t understand it. 

Good point - it's not always that they weren't listening. There's a good chance that they didn't understand and I need to figure out what is going on but asking them some questions.

 And the other one I recognize is

“Does that make sense?” When I ask a whole group this question, of course no one is going to shout out, “No, that was completely confusing!”  One solution is for me to talk less, so they have less to decipher.  When I do need some immediate feedback, I try to employ student response systems like Socrative or good, old-fashioned thumbs up/thumbs down.  The best way to tell, of course, is to take a good look at my audience.  If you know your students, you can pretty much tell by the looks on their faces if they “got it” or not.

But I do try limiting that as a whole group question and it is a good idea to do the thumbs up/thumbs down or thumbs wavering response for a quick gauge of understanding.  

And a final (short) post worth looking at is "There is Such a Thing as a Stupid Question, Stupid" by Megan Walsh. She considers that teachers are to blame for this problem with these comments (referencing comments by Art Graesser, a University of Memphis psychology professor and Oxford researcher):

And we, at least in part, have teachers to blame for our poor inquiry skills. Kids are naturally curious — why? how? what would happen if? — but educators don’t much encourage such intellectual aimlessness. Instead they want kids to know the answers to who, what, when, where — or so-called grill and kill questions. “Our school systems have removed curiosity from kids,” Graesser says. “It’s not socially sanctioned to ask the questions that actually matter.”

That may be because teachers know they don’t have all the answers. Or because they don’t want to derail their lesson plans. Graesser’s prescription for the stupid-question epidemic is that teachers present students with dilemmas that are based in genuine uncertainty, where they can be co-explorers in the search for knowledge.

 (emphasis mine)

A tall order and a little daunting when we consider how much we need to cram into our days to cover all our curriculum. So maybe we can't do it every day, but we can try to do this. And it's a great way to introduce new concepts in general and performance tasks that use a variety of skills. Limit the information you give students, pose a dilemma to them (how would we simplify this expression? How could we solve this problem?). Allow some brainstorming. Let their creativity and curiosity take over.

Who knew there would be so much in the simple sentence "There is no such thing as a stupid question"!