By: Megan Prats

8/27/2015

Leading questions are questions that are developed in such a way that the answer is really already given in the question. Because you teach via critical thinking, you are going to spend a lot of your time in the lessons asking the student questions. Now, not all questions are created equal; leading questions should not be used as they inherently do away with the student’s ability to arrive to the answer on her own.

I personally am guilty of using leading questions in the lessons when I become impatient with the student. Because I know that I must teach via critical thinking, if I ask a leading question the student will arrive to the answer quickly and I’ll still be doing “critical thinking development” because the student arrived to the answer via the “problem-solving” process. However, the truth of the matter is that critical thinking development only occurs when the student solves the problem for herself so if the answer is hidden in the question, then I’m not doing my job as a teacher.

A great example of a pure leading question is, “What did we just talk about?”; to get the student to the answer. I do this from time-to-time so that the student can just regurgitate the previous content in the lesson to say the answer. In this case, the student doesn’t have to do any critical thinking, really just memorization. Thus, such a question means that I’ve utterly failed at my job as a 2learn® teacher.

I’ve found myself using leading questions in my lessons because impatience overtakes me and I always want to do critical thinking development. However, after realizing that this has become a bad habit, I’ve needed to take a step back and recognize that I’m doing the student a disservice with leading questions. If I really want to do critical thinking development, the answer will not appear in any part of the question so that the student can arrive to the answer on her own. So when the question catapults the student to the answer, critical thinking development disappears.

So, to correct leading questions, you need to first form your questions without the answer and then have patience for the student to get to the answer herself. If the student gets stuck along the way you can help her out, but the idea is for you to not be the bridge from the question to the answer. In reality, the best critical thinking questions give the student absolutely no guidance as to how to get to the answer which would require the student to completely navigate the infinite realm of knowledge to her destination for herself. So, don’t ask the antithesis of critical thinking development questions – leading questions – like I do, instead arm yourself with patience and true critical thinking development questions to do your job as a 2learn® teacher.

© Megan Prats 2015