UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA

Title: Classroom Questioning

KATHLEEN COTTON
According to the writer the subject of classroom questioning often begin by invoking
Socrates. Its concerned with questioning techniques seem to want to remind us that questioning has
a long and venerable history as an educational strategy. The Socratic method of using questions and
answers to challenge assumptions, expose contradictions, and lead to new knowledge and wisdom is
an undeniably powerful teaching approach. The writer too focuses on the relationship between
teachers' classroom questioning behaviors and a variety of student outcomes, including achievement,
retention, and level of student participation. This means that certain other subtopics within the
general area of questioning are excluded from the present analysis.
The purposes of teachers classroom questions variety its including to develop interest and
motivate students to become actively involved in lessons, to evaluate students preparation and
check on homework or seatwork completion and more. The general findings of the writer are
instruction which includes posing questions during lessons is more effective in producing
achievement gains than instruction carried out without questioning students. In placement and timing
of questions its show that asking questions frequently during class discussions is positively related to
learning facts. In Cognitive Level of Questions researchers have designed experiments which
examine the effects of questions framed at differing levels of Bloom's Taxonomy of School
Learning. These levels, in ascending order of sophistication, are: (1) knowledge, (2) comprehension,
(3) application, (4) analysis, (5) synthesis, and (6) evaluation.
There are other hierarchies, too, which are used as the basis for structuring comparative
studies. The research on questioning includes investigations into the effects of redirecting questions
when initial responses are unsatisfactory or incomplete, probing for more complete responses, and
providing reinforcement of responses. Reports on most practices investigated by educational
researchers include findings about the effects of the practice on student attitudes as well as learning
outcomes. Teacher Training Research tells us that preservice teachers are given inadequate training
in developing questioning strategies and, indeed, that some receive no training at all. Better
preservice training in the art of posing classroom questions, together with inservice training to
sharpen teachers questioning skills, have potential for increasing students classroom participation
and achievement. Increasing wait-time and the incidence of higher cognitive questions, in particular,
have considerable promise for improving the effectiveness of classroom instruction.
UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA

Title: What Is Successful Adaptationof Lesoon Study In The US?
REBECCA R.PERRY.CATHERINE C. LEWIS
The Researchers REBECCA R.PERRY.CATHERINE C. LEWIS features a case study of
one US K-8 school district pioneering the use of lesson study, a teacher professional development
approach adapted from Japan. The case explores events that occurred in the district over more than 4
years (Spring 2000 Fall 2004) as lesson study spread nationally and within the district. Lesson
study, a teacher professional development approach widely used in Japan, was first brought to the
attention of many US educators in 1999, with the release of Stigler and Heberts book The Teaching
Gap. Lesson study may hold potential for promoting both individual improvement for teachers who
participate and more systemic improvement for the US education system. The case we present
provides an existence proof (Shulman 1983) of lesson studys successful adaptation within a US
school district, where it has continued for more than 4 years and has been successful with respect to
certain key criteria outlined by Cuban (1998).
This paper is based in part on previous written descriptions and conference presentations
(Lewis et al. 2004; Perry et al. 2002, 2003) and was reviewed by the lesson study leaders and
selected district teachers. Changes in lesson study structure and practice the basic structure of the
districts lesson study model remained consistent over the case study period: teachers typically
participated actively in lesson study either during the school year or during intensive workshops.
However, the leaders made four minor modifications to this basic structure after the first year.
Teachers in this group continued to use a written rationale and emailed reflections during the
subsequent school years as they worked in their school-based groups.
The four types of evolution in the districts lesson study approach incorporation of feedback
from reflection, development of tools, focus on student thinking, and use of outside knowledge
sources continuously changed the nature of the knowledge-building and knowledge-sharing that was
possible among teachers in the district. Lesson study is designed to influence change in a slow and
steady way (Stigler and Hiebert1999), and this case demonstrates dramatically why change takes
time. One implication of this case is that other US sites may have to go through similar steps to build
successful lesson study efforts: establishing authentic professional communities able to address
conflicting ideas and build teachers knowledge; breaking down traditional hierarchical relationships
within the system and walls that keep classroom practices private; focusing on student thinking;
taking initiative to draw on external knowledge sources; and realizing that the shared research lesson
(an unfamiliar form) can provide a solid basis for collaborative reflection about students progress
toward instructional goals.
UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA


Title: Behaviorism, Constructivism and Socratic Pedagogy
PETER BOGHOSSIAN

The authors describe the relationship among behaviorism, constructivism and Socratic
pedagogy. Specifically, it asks if a Socratic educator can be a constructivist or a behaviorist. In the
first part of the paper, each learning theory, as it relates to the Socratic project, is explained. In the
second section, the question of whether or not a Socratic teacher can subscribe to a constructivist or
a behaviorist learning theory is addressed. The paper concludes by stating that while Socratic
pedogogy shares some similarities with each learning theory, ultimately it is fundamentally
incompatible with both. Behaviorism dominated the educational landscape 20 years ago, while the
foremost learning theory today is constructivism. The Socratic Method provides a middle ground
between the two and has many of the strengths of both behaviorism and constructivism. There is no
knowledge independent of the meaning attributed to experience (constructed) by the learner, or
community of learners. (Hein1991). There are many type of constructivism, among the most popular
are cognitive, critical, radical and social. As a learning theory, constructivism emerged from broader
movements in western intellectual thought:the subjective turn and postmodernism.
Behaviorism is diametrically opposed to constructivism. Behaviorism is a psychology that
was strongly influenced by positivism, a philosophical movement. The presupposition of the
Socratic method is that there is a truth of the matter and that truth can be known through discourse or
more specifically through the elenetic process. Ultimately, the main purpose of Socratic method is to
help the students and the teacher, find the truth(Boghossisn,2002b). A behaviorist would be likely to
view the Socratic method as a type of stimulus. The purpose of the Socratic method is give
participants a way to arrive at the truth, and the Socratic teacher attempts to guide students, and even
herself to the truth. This would lead to an epistemological obituary because any type of dialectical
interchange would be prevented by relativisit claims. As such a constructivist could not authentically
practice the Socratic method.
Both behaviorism and constructivism are incompatible with Socratic practice. Each learning
theory has elements that are antithetical to Socratic pedagogy: behaviorism rejects a dialectical
process and does not actively involve the learner,and constructivim has a radically different
epistemology and metaphysic. However, it would be a mistaken to say that these similarties are
sufficient to enable a Socratic teacher to be a constructivist or a behaviorist.
UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA


Title: Educational Psychology-Theory, Research, And Teaching:25-Year Retrospective
DENNIS M MCINERNEY
The author presents a brief overview of developments in educational psychology over the last
twentyfive years. It firstly presents an historical context by reviewing four basic emphases in
educational psychology; cognitive psychology, behavioural psychology, social cognitive theory and
humanism. The article then reviews the growth in cognitive psychology research by briefly
examining developments arising from Piagetian, Vygotskian and information processing theories.
The article examines the development of constructivist approaches to learning and teaching, and the
growth in cognitive theories of motivation. Crosscultural, methodological and other developments
in educational psychology are also briefly examined. The article concludes with five paradoxes to
stimulate the reader to consider some implications of this 25 year overview.
There is a strong link between educational psychology theorizing and research and teaching-
learning processes. The new context has enabled us to scrutinise old theories more closely and
breathe new life into them through research,theory and practice that capitalizes on this new
technology. There were four basic emphases in educational psychology research 25 years ago it is
included cognitive psychology, behavioural psychology, social cognitive theory and humanism.
Congnitive psychology encompassed the work of Gagne, Ausubel, Burner and others and a whole
raft of cognitive processing topics such as the transfer of learning, the role of prior knowledge,
massed versus distributed practice. The second basic emphasis, behavioural psychology and
mechanistic views of learning in which individuals were seen more as bundles of operants shaped by
reinforcement than active thinking and perceiving processors of information. A third, social learning
theory, largely identified with Bandura and derived from behavioural theory, was prominent in the
early 1980s. a fourth covered in those ealy days, sometimes referred to as the third psychology was
humanism, originally identified with Rogers and Maslow. Humanism was seen by many as an
antidote to many of the overly mechanistic approaches to learning and teaching. The methodological
and statistical sophistication required of researchers has increased enormously and indeed it appears
at times that the sophistication demanded by journals for publication of articles outstrips, in general,
the skills of most practitioners and many researchers. In conclusion and in the context of the above
brief overview and discuss five paradoxes. Another reviewer look at the field by dividing research
into different categories to the ones chose, namely pure research applied research, interdisciplinary
research and policy research.