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Text questions prepared by the teacher

Brief description

In this activity, the students will work with the course texts on the basis of questions. The point of departure of the activity is that you as a teacher formulate a number of questions for the course text material and ask the students to reflect on these when preparing for class.

Motivation for the activity and required outcome

The activity is intended to help the students become more focused in their preparation for class by working actively with the course texts. When asking questions about the texts, you help your students prioritise and focus their reading activities. Moreover, the activity may help create better coherence between teaching sessions and the work in study groups as it helps ensure that the study groups are being used actively and are not in risk of petering out.

Perform the activity

  • You should formulate a number of questions for the course text material. The questions should be formulated so as to help the students work actively with the texts.
  • Make the questions available to the students well in advance of the teaching session, so that they have time to answer and use the questions when reading the texts.
  • When making the questions available, it is important that you also focus on why the selected questions are being asked. Explain to your students that different texts prompt different types of questions and answers.
  • Ask your students to use the questions as a basis for their work with the course texts in their study groups.
  • Include study group responses in your teaching and use these as a springboard for discussion and reflection on the primary texts of the course.

Options:

  • You may facilitate the activity as part of your teaching. Ask the students to discuss briefly with the student next to them about questions for the text. Speak about some of the questions in class before or after you review the texts of the day.
  • You may make two different question sheets so that every other study group answers different questions to the texts and present their answers to each other in class.
  • A third option is to let the students formulate questions to the texts. Upload these well in time for the students to work with them when preparing for individual teaching sessions.
  • You may combine the activity with an academic student café where the students can turn up during a certain time period and work with questions to the texts while you as a teacher, student teachers or older students are present.

Activities

    Examples of Practice


      Worth considering:

      • How much time will you spend in class on reviewing the questions for the texts?
      • How many questions should be formulated for each text?