Being able to understand how to process a question that is asked of you is a pivotal part of the education process. Students can be confronted with two different types of questions. If the purpose of a question is to gauge if remember pertinent information from what you are studying, it is referred to as a closed question. This requires students to rely on facts and leaves little wiggle room for a valid answer. They are either correct or they are not. Many forms of learning lean on these types of questions heavily. Questions that are open-ended lead to dense responses and often can have many forms of a correct answer. Open questions lead student groups to lively discussions that can take into consideration many different viewpoints. Open question forms tend to stimulate higher levels of thought and are often posed towards topics that students have a solid background in.
As teachers we need to use our bag of tricks to progress students towards more open-ended question forms. These types of questions tend to require students to attribute value to what is being discussed. Closed questions require less thought and less wait time to tackle. We should encourage students to repeat or paraphrase questions that are posed to them. This selection of worksheets will have students answer questions that are presented in an open and closed form. We are looking for well thought out answers to those questions.
