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Questioning skills

One of the leading tools on every successful case teacher’s What's the most valuable tool in a teacher's toolkit, you will however need an extensive knowledge of the subject matter, a well-designed teaching plans as well as the ability to ask the right questions of all the most important is the ability to ask the right questions

The ability to ask the right questions paves the way to understanding and curiosity in the classroom.

Questions act as a bridge, connecting students to a deeper comprehension of the case and the learning intended. They foster engagement, curiosity, and active learning in the classroom.

Understanding Questioning Skills

Imagine teaching without asking questions. It's like constructing a building without the essential support pillars, resulting in an unstable foundation.

Why it is important to develop the skill of questioning

In this section, we'll dive into what questioning skill means and why it's pivotal for your journey as a case teacher.

What is Questioning Skill?

Questioning skill is the ability to ask the right questions at the right time in the classroom. It is the ability of a case teacher to ask relevant, purposeful, and thought-provoking questions that elicit meaningful responses from students. Questioning skill is essential for building a strong educational foundation. Let’s revisit our previous example: if you keep constructing a building without any quality checks or support pillars, what will happen? It will not turn out the way you wanted it to be, and inevitably it will collapse. Similarly, in the context of teaching, the building is the knowledge you impart, and the support pillars are your questioning skills. They help you check your students’ understanding and guide their learning. You might be wondering: isn’t this what we do in assessments? Not really! Questioning is a different way of measuring learning that has some unique benefits. It gives you immediate feedback and lets you adjust your teaching according to your students’ needs. Assessments, on the other hand, usually measure the final outcomes of learning after a certain period of time. For example, a good question after teaching fractions is: “How can you use fractions to compare the sizes of different objects?”. This helps them apply their knowledge to real-world situations.

What is questioning skill and its importance

Why is it Important to Develop the Skill of Questioning?
Developing questioning skills is a game-changer for case teachers and students. The benefits of questioning skills for case teachers and case students are huge. Let’s start with how case teachers can benefit from questioning skills-

Benefits for Teachers

Assessment of Student Understanding: Utilize questioning skills to identify areas where students may be struggling. This lets you help them individually or give them extra support to improve their understanding.
Timely Feedback for Improvement: The art of questioning helps you gather immediate feedback and insights into the effectiveness of your pedagogy on student comprehension. This creates an environment that values continuous improvement and enables students to address challenges promptly by reflecting on their learning.
Inclusive classroom environment: Cultivate trust and openness by asking engaging questions and motivating active student participation. Ensure a diverse range of voices is heard, fostering an inclusive and respectful classroom atmosphere.
Positive Teacher-Student Relationships: Harness questioning skills to engage authentically with students, understanding their unique needs and perspectives. This not only builds rapport but also establishes a foundation for a positive and supportive teacher-student relationship.

Using a case-based approach engages undergraduate students in discussion of specific scenarios that resemble or typically are real-world examples. This method is learner-centered with intense interaction between participants as they build their knowledge and work together as a group to examine the case. The instructor's role is that of a facilitator while the students collaboratively analyse and address problems and resolve questions that have no single right answer. To do this effectively the facilitator has to:

 Tells a story.
 Focuses on an interest-arousing issue.
 Set in the past five years
 Creates empathy with the central characters.
 Includes quotations. There is no better way to understand a situation and to gain empathy for the characters
 Relevant to the reader.
 Must have pedagogic utility.
 Conflict provoking.
 Decision forcing.
 Has generality.

Remember that most of the undergraduate student have little or no real-world work experience, hence we advise that you make the case brief (Max 3 pages). Give them ample time to read the case and ask more experience people questions. Also put them into group so the can discuss the case properly for say one week. Target students in their final year in school, you are more likely to have an engaging class.

Teaching cases at graduate school and Executive Programs

To provide participants with a relevant opportunity to see theory in practice. Real world or authentic contexts expose participants to viewpoints from multiple sources and see why people may want different outcomes. Participants can also see how a decision will impact different participants, both positively and negatively.
To require participant to analyse data in order to reach a conclusion. Since many assignments are open- ended, students can practice choosing appropriate analytic techniques as well. Instructors who use case- based learning say that their students are more engaged, interested, and involved in the class.
To develop analytic, communicative and collaborative skills along with content knowledge. In their effort to find solutions and reach decisions through discussion, participants sort out factual data, apply analytic tools, articulate issues, reflect on their relevant experiences, and draw conclusions they can relate to new situations. In the process, they acquire substantive knowledge and develop analytic, collaborative, and communication skills.
Many faculty also use case studies in their curriculum to teach content, connect students with real life data, or provide opportunities for students to put themselves in the decision maker's shoes.

Teaching Strategies for Case-Based Learning

By bringing real world problems into student learning, cases invite active participation and innovative solutions to problems as they work together to reach a judgment, decision, recommendation, prediction or other concrete outcome.

Access to Case Technical notes

Most of the Case materials on Case Afrique comes with technical notes and we encourage case writers to develop technical and teaching notes. If you are having difficulties with the technical not please get across us and we will be glad to help you

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