On Questions: Asking Them, Answering Them, and Learning From Them

As teachers we are generally in the business of giving information, an act that typically takes the form of statements or assertions or demonstrations. At the same time, too, we also ask questions, in large part to stimulate students or to test their knowledge in some way. Finally, we receive questions, in particular ones the students throw our way in the hopes of gaining both clarification and knowledge. These two aspects of questioning both have considerable value in fostering learning, and thus there is another facet to consider with regard to questions, namely learning from them