Nov 20, 2011

Teaching how to ask a good question


Question is one of the media which is frequently used in science class. Both questions by students and by teachers are important. Asking a good question is a key to success of science class. Some questions make students to think deeply, but the other questions make no effect. Then, what is a good question? How can we ask a good question? How can we teach students questioning skills.



Simple but powerful game

Last Tuesday, I joined EDCP 349 class. In this class, Elizabeth was supposed to teach questioning skill. Surely there are many good principles of questionning in the textbook. But, she started with simple game, which was inpired me so much. I don't remember the name of game, but it was so simple to remember how to do it.

How to play

Detail of the game is like following :


  1. Prepare sheets of paper label
  2. Write various name of animal on each label
  3. Put each label on student's back
  4. Do not let student know the name of animal
  5. Let students quess animal on their back by asking T/F questions to other students


As the game started, all students move around and asked question about the animal on their back. I also participated in this game, and I asked some questions to guess the animal on my back .


  1. Do I live in the sea or water? NO
  2. Do I have four legs? NO
  3. Can I fly? YES
  4. Am I big? NO
  5. (I got some hints it is related with baby)
  6. Do I have antennas? YES
  7. Then, I am a butterfly!


Name tag which was put on my back


What does this activity tell us?

In order to get answer, how many questions do we need? That depends on the quality of questions. Some strategies are needed to finish quickly. That is the point. Students get to realize that question is important. If we play this game again, they must ask a question seriously. I found that this was really cool activity to teach how to ask a good question.

Aug 18, 2011

Active Textbook - Helping digital learning


Recently, I got to know new software for classroom presentation, called ActiveTextbook.It is a electronic textbook rather than a presentation tool.



[Homepage of ActiveTextbook]



You can edit just like a textbook, but also can add some movies and interactive quizzes. You can get a glimpse here.



|요약| 액티브 텍스트북(ActiveTextbook)이라는 프리젠테이션 소프트웨어가 있다. 프리젠테이션이라기 보다는 전자책에 가깝다. 책과 동일한 형태의 편집을 유지하면서 사진이 들어갈 자리에 동영상을 넣을 수도 있고, 텍스트가 있는 곳에 즉각적인 피드백을 받을 수 있는 퀴즈 문제도 제시할 수 있다.

Sep 6, 2010

Post-it activity

Recently I learned how to interact with students from university teaching skill seminar. Actually students would not answer to my question, but it's very easy and useful. Just use post-it. I asked students "what do you think about when you heard the word science?". Then students wrote their answer post-it, and then put their post-it on board. Every student participate this activity, and I use these answers in following explanation. 


Words coming up with when students heard the word "science" / 과학하면 생각나는 단어들

최근 교수법 세미나에서 학생들과 상호작용하는 방법을 배웠다. 사실 학생들은 강사의 질문에 대답을 하려 들지 않는다. 그러나 쉬우면서도 유용한 방법이 있다. 포스트잇을 이용하는 것이다. 수업 중에 "과학이라는 단어를 들으면 어떤 생각이 떠오르는가"하고 물어 보았다. 학생들은 자신의 답을 포스트잇에 적었고, 칠판에 붙이게 했다. 모든 학생이 참여했으며, 이후 나는 이 이것들을 가지고 수업을 진행할 수 있었다.


[사족] 포스트잇의 장점은 쉽게 붙였다 뗏다가 가능하다는 것. 분류 작업을 하기에 적당하다. 학생들의 응답을 비슷한 것끼리 분류하고, 하나를 골라 왜 그런 답을 했는지 설명하도록 진행하면 된다.