Enhancing GTA’s questioning techniques in classroom: A strategy of using an online tool in a mandatory training course

Abstract

Effective training for Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) is crucial to maximizing the impact of GTAs in higher education teaching, especially for the first-year GTAs, as they just transitioned from undergraduates to postgraduates. With the adoption of Outcomes-Based Approaches to Student Learning (OBASL), all the research postgraduate students at the University of Hong Kong are required to complete a mandatory training course, Certificate of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. This course organized by the Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) aims to develop basic teaching skills, such as the skills of engaging diverse students in active learning, providing feedback, preparing assessment/questions, grading with rubrics, adopting OBASL in teaching, etc. One of the major issues observed in their micro-teaching (10-min) is mainly related to their questioning techniques. Using the right questions and delivering questions effectively are essential because they help learners to clear out confusions, to clarify misconception and to demonstrate their levels of understanding. Vague questions, unclear purposes of questions, no “wait time”, no further guideline, and limited feedback to learners are the five common areas that they need to improve. An in-class activity was designed to enhance their questioning techniques. A game-based online tool, “Kahoot!”, was chosen due to its specific features that are highly relevant to some effective/essential questioning techniques. Participants were told to take 10 min to do an in-class activity for testing knowledge. It was then followed by a debriefing. Students were guided to discuss the specific features of “Kahoot!” and how do they relate them to the questioning techniques they learned. After that, they were invited to reflect on their experience in “Kahoot!” activity. Students’ reflections showed that they were able to identify their mistakes in the ways of setting questions and delivering quiz in class. Instead of simply saying that “I should prepare more questions before class”, some students also suggested concrete actions to prepare for their final teaching demonstration in the course or future teaching practice, such as “to bring along a timer to ensure providing enough time for students to think and process”, “to prepare graphs or pictures as visual cues or hints”, “to use diverse types of questions”, etc. This study showed that this strategy of using Kahoot! is effective to enhance students’ questioning techniques. It is anticipated that the study results would also provide inspiration to teachers to choose appropriate online tools to assist teaching.