Kysymykset??? (Questions)

Someone wise once said that good teaching is asking the right questions, not providing the right answers..

To some extent this is probable true and I have thought about this - for one, because I am of the opinion that good teachers should be able to provide the right answers, AS WELL as the right questions and because I have experienced the importance of right questions quite a few times. One of my lessons today made me think about the importance of asking the right questions. But first to one of my own experiences with asking questions.

We did an exam project with 9th graders in December last year, including both oral tests and correcting essays (+ providing feedback in person). All the feedback was provided orally to the students (+ written to their teacher) and when I was going through one of the student's essay in person, I tried my best to ask questions and not provide answers. There was a sentence in the essay I wanted to change, but I didn't want to tell the student what to do - not just because it would decrease the learning potential, but because the student might feel it as a personal attack if I did.

I showed the student the sentence and the student read it.
I asked what could be changed in the sentence to make it more understandable. No answer.
I asked the student to listen carefully while I read the sentence. The student asked me about one part of the sentence - if that was what needed to be changed and I confirmed it. This was the bit that needed changes.
I asked the student for an example of how the sentence could be changed and got an acceptable answer, but this was a good student, so I wanted more, an even better answer.
Now I came up with one example, which was slightly "better" than the student's answer - and without really finishing my sentence, the student took over and corrected the sentence to a third and much better version of the sentence. Applaud!

I know that in real-life situations I will not have this opportunity very often, because time is so restricted, but as long as I have this in mind - not always providing answers, but sometimes questions as well, some what open questions - I have opened up for more learning opportunities than I would have had without this approach. 

So, to go back to my experience at school today. I observed a lesson where a teacher trainee student was in charge. This particular exercise I'm going to mention happened in the middle of the lesson. The pupils formed pairs and wrote a few sentences where the task was to change adverbs in to adjectives. Some of them volunteered to write their sentences on the blackboard, and the teacher trainee then read the sentences out loud and asked if anyone had any proposals for possible changes. No answer. He then changed one of the sentences because of a grammatical error. I noticed a few students who used their rubbers and changed what they had written in their exercise books. The teacher trainee asked again for proposals for the next sentence, but still no answer - and the same thing happened.  He ended up correcting all the sentences himself  (one correct version pr. sentence) - without any help from the pupils and without pointing out other correct versions.
It was obvious that he had good intentions, but just didn't succeed and said after the lesson that it was difficult for him to "pull" proposals out of the students - probable a common problem when working with teenagers. Well, he did get some useful (I hope) feedback, soo.. Yes! I made a mistake!

And, yes! I have made many similar mistakes myself - and I will do more, many more, even though I know I shouldn't. Sometimes time runs away from me, sometimes I am out of patience and other times I'm just plain silly - but the point is as stated above..

Yes, I made a mistake - but when I do, I'll get back on my feet..