Teacher Questioning Strategies in Mathematical Classroom Discourse: A Case Study of Two Grade Eight Teachers in Tennessee, USA

Teacher questioning in mathematics is an important diagnostic tool for teaching as well as measuring the academic progression and comprehension of the learner. While teacher questioning enhances student learning and self-assessment of the teacher’s lesson delivery effectiveness, if not presented properly can have negative impacts on the student learning process. Identifying “good” and/or “effective” questioning strategies is a major challenge to mathematics teachers. To increase teacher effectiveness and student success in mathematics, a self-assessment of teacher questioning techniques is essential. This study examines the questioning strategies used by two grade 8 teachers, selected at random, from twelve middle school teachers each handling quadratic mathematical modeling as one of their lessons in a project. The purpose of this study was to determine the questioning strategies used by the two teachers in their mathematical classroom discourse. Each class was videotaped over six-month period but only a section from each of the two selected classes, on quadratic modeling, was watched for about 45 minutes long for the purpose of this paper. A common theme “teacher questioning strategies” was the bases for analyzing the data. The strategies include: probing and follow-up, leading, check-listing and student-specific questioning. Findings from the study indicate that guiding teachers (pre-service and in-service) through an analysis of questions they ask and the responses they get from students during mathematical discourse, may enable them recognize both effective and ineffective questioning strategies in their mathematical classroom discourse. This study may help both pre-service and in-service teachers as well as teacher-researchers to be well aware of their questioning practices by reflecting on the questioning strategies they use in their own mathematical classroom discourse. Keywords: probing and follow-up, scaffolding, checklisting strategy, leading questions, student-specific questioning