Fostering questions in class: How to create and maintain a learning environment that encourages students to ask questions

Abstract

In virtually any learning process, questions occur on the students' side. However, in university education, more often than not students do not voice these questions aloud, especially not within a large auditorium. As a consequence, knowledge and skill gaps are not brought to the lecturer's attention as soon as the student becomes aware of them, but are kept more or less secret instead. Thus, the underlying knowledge gaps tend to exist for a rather long time, which inhibits the students' learning and development process. Remedying this situation requires to create — and maintain — a learning environment that encourages students to ask questions. We introduce a systematic approach for fostering questions in class that addresses both emotional and cognitive aspects. It combines some theoretical background with best practices from practical teaching.