This week, we’ve been giving you tips to improve the quality of the interactions in your videoconferences. The question and answer time can be when the videoconference spirals out of control, or it can be a profitable learning experience.
Has this ever happened to you during Q&A time?
- No one can think of a question until after you disconnect.
- All the students start asking questions at once.
- All the students answer the question at the same time and other class can’t hear the answer.
- The students ask only questions such as, How long is your recess? and what are your favorite subjects?
- The students can’t think of questions; so they ask the same questions that the other class just asked them.
Let’s Improve Those Questions
- Before the connection, learn a little about the location of your partner class. As a class, brainstorm some questions to learn more based on what you learned. For example, let’s say you’re connecting to a class in Midland, Michigan, which has a Dow Chemical Plant. Students might ask, how many of your parents work on the plant & what jobs do they do? Or, how does the chemical plant impact your community?
- During the connection, after each class has done their formal presentation, mute for 2 minutes to brainstorm questions. What could you ask the classes based on their presentations? What else do you want to know? You might even have some feedback/compliments to share with your partner class. For example, “We liked your PowerPoint presentation. Was it hard to find pictures for it? Where did you look?”
- Designate 3-5 students on a “question answer team.” These students are responsible for answering the questions from the partner class and make sure that one student answers at a time.
- Set up the question. Have the student(s) start with, Hi my name is _____. Then lead the question with a statement. For example, In our class, we have horses, dogs, cats and a lizard as pets. What pets do you have?
- When facilitating a multipoint session, don’t say, “Any questions?” Always call on schools by name (in the same order) so they know who should be talking.
Challenge/Comment
- Try out one of these tips in your next videoconference. Tell us how it went.
- Do you have any other question tips?
- Do you have any stories of great questions students have asked?
Comment and tell us about it!
I have seen where teachers will cordinate with the conference site and brainstorm ahead of time with their students a list of questions. The teacher will then forward the question list to the conference site or other teacher. This allows the cordinating team to be aware of what questions will be asked by the students and ensures that the students get well thougth out answers.