[Dean's World] Naftali: Teaching With Questions Not Answers?

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Posted by Naftali:
Teaching With Questions Not Answers?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1199205471.shtml


   This morning I "Stumbled upon" [1]Rick Garlikov's essay describing his
   impressively successful experience teaching, by means of questions
   alone, binary arithmetic to a third grade class. Throughout the entire
   session Rick made no categorical declarations and, apparently, the
   children came to understand binary arithmetic by means of their own
   answers to Rick's questions.

   As I have some experience teaching children, the piece invoked in me
   plenty of comment material. I am not arguing against anything Rick
   says in his piece; his piece is far more descriptive than
   prescriptive.

   My central point in this post is a simple one: a good teacher must
   constantly tailor his teaching method to fit the subject matter and
   the level, aptitude, and attitude of his students. No one method can
   ever suffice.

   The methods of teaching employed by a teacher for the benefit of
   student can be divided, generally, into two classes, each with it's
   own advantages. I shall call them Bottom Up and Top Down,
   respectively. A good teacher, I insist, will employ a mixture of both,
   even, most often, in the same teaching session.

   Bottom Up: Basically, what Rick did in the session described in his
   post is a perfect example of this method in its most extreme
   manifestation. The teacher brings his students (bottom) up to the
   level of the information. The advantage is obvious; the students
   really get it; in fact, they got to it 'themselves'; the students now
   hold at the level of the concept.

   Top Down: Basically the teacher brings the concept down to his
   students. The advantage is simple: the ceiling of Bottom Up is mainly
   determined by the current level of the students, while the ceiling of
   Top Down is mainly determined by the level of the teacher; the better
   the teacher the further he can bring concepts down. Thus, a teacher
   can give to his students what they are not at the level yet to arrive
   at themselves.

   (Relatedly, it's a safe bet that almost all of the answers offered by
   the students to rick's questions were, rightly, transmitted to them,
   originally, through a top down method.)

References

   1. http://www.garlikov.com/Soc_Meth.html