Which Student Questions Should Teachers Not Answer?

            In this chapter of his book, Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Peter Liljedahl (Simon Fraser University) says research and his own classroom observations show that teachers typically answer between 200 and 400 student questions a day – some teachers as many as 600. The problem is that the hard work of answering all those questions often lets students off the hook from doing their own thinking. 

            So what should teachers do? “The answer lies not in whether or not we answer students’ question,” says Liljedahl, “but which questions we answer.” He’s found there are three types of questions in classrooms: 

• Proximity questions – Students ask these questions when the teacher happens to be close by, and most often the questions are about something kids don’t really need help on – for example, For Question 3, were we supposed to find all the answers? or Are we doing this right? Why do students ask proximity questions? Because of highly socialized roles in classrooms, says Liljedahl. Asking a question is one of the most “studently” things a kid can do, and answering the question is one of the most “teacherly” things a teacher can do.

            Sometimes a shy student will take advantage of the teacher’s proximity to ask a question they wouldn’t raise their hand or stand in line to ask, but most of the time, proximity questions are socialized filler and add little value. Sometimes these questions are a way for a student to distract the teacher from catching them on their cell phone or some other off-task behavior. 

• Stop-thinking questions – Examples of this type: Is this right? Is this going to be on the test? Do we have to learn this? “These questions,” says Liljedahl, “are motivated by the reality that, for students, thinking is difficult, and it’s hard to decide for themselves that what they are doing is correct. If they can just get you to do that for them, their life would be so much easier.” 
• Keep-thinking questions – These clarifying or extension questions are asked when students are motivated and engaged with the task at hand – for example, We’re having trouble here. Were we supposed to do this for all the possible sizes? or Are we supposed to now look at the general case? 

            Liljedahl has found that about 90 percent of the questions students ask are in the first two categories. The result: teachers are knocking themselves out doing something that contributes very little to students building their thinking muscles. In many cases it completely shuts down thinking. 

            The solution, says Liljedahl, is for teachers to answer only the third type – the keep-thinking questions. This requires knowing how to quickly spot proximity and stop-thinking questions and developing a skillset for deflecting them. He’s found that most teachers have no trouble discerning the type of question being asked. Most of the questions students ask immediately after being given an assignment are for clarification or to avoid having to do the work of seeing what’s being asked and deciding how to solve the problem. The moments just after an assignment has been given are when the most questions are asked, and it’s wise for the teacher to not circulate at this point. 

            Once students have their heads into the assignment, circulating is important and the teacher needs to decide on the effect answering a question will have: Are they asking for more activity or less, more work or less, more thinking or less? Students may be inventive, making a statement and quizzically raising their eyebrows at the end: We are thinking this is correct. [What do you think?] This is correct [Right?] I think we are going the right way. [Right?] “Don’t be fooled by these pseudo-statements,” advises Liljedahl. “If their tone is inviting a response from you, they are really asking a question – and by the nature of the disguise, it is almost always a stop-thinking question.” 

            But how can teachers get away with not answering stop-thinking and low-value proximity questions? “Students can be very persistent in their efforts to get you to help them reduce their workload,” says Liljedahl, “and how you respond to this is important.” One approach is answering the question with a question – for example: 

    - Isn’t that interesting?

    - Can you find something else? 

    - Can you show me how you did that? 

    - Is that always true? 

    - Why do you think that is? 

    - Are you sure? 

    - Does that make sense? 

    - Why don’t you try something else? 

    - Why don’t you try another one? 

    - Are you asking me or telling me? 

            Some of the teachers Liljedahl was working with said this strategy was successful, but others found it was a slippery slope. Here’s how one dialogue with a student went: 

    - Why don’t you try something else? 

    - Like what? 

    - Maybe you need to consider the cases where x is negative. 

    - You mean like this? 

    - Right! 

            Answering a question with a question was only effective, Liljedahl found, when it was immediately followed by the teacher walking away without saying more. This annoyed students, but teachers found that within a few days using this approach, there were far fewer proximity and stop-thinking questions… 

            Except in primary-grade classrooms. “If a six-year-old asks a question and it is not answered,” says Liljedahl, “they ask it again. If it is still not answered, they ask it again. And if it is still not answered they do something that a 16-year-old does not. They reach out and touch the teacher – tap them on the arm or pull on their clothing. And if the teacher walks away, they follow. I have multiple videos of kindergarten and grade 1 teachers walking around the room with a row of little ducklings following them.” 

            With young students, when the teacher didn’t respond a question, they assumed it hadn’t been heard and felt ignored. So Liljedahl came up with a modification for primary grades: look at the student asking the question, maybe ask a question, smile, and then walk away. This turned out to be effective for all grade levels. Students knew their question had been heard and that the teacher’s decision not to answer was deliberate. 

            “Many students took this to mean that they needed to do more work,” says Liljedahl. “Over time, the students began to see the smile and walking away as a sign that the teacher had confidence in their ability to resolve the question on their own. There were still a few students who were frustrated by these encounters. But they were thinking more – or no longer having the teacher do their thinking for them.” 

            What if students insist that the teacher answer a stop-thinking question? If it’s an Is this right? question, Liljedahl suggests being explicit: “I’m not going to answer that question. Me telling you that it is right is worth almost nothing. If you can tell me that it is right, however, that is worth everything.”

            Should teachers explain the three types of questions to students, telling them which will be answered and which won’t? Liljedahl has found this is a good idea, but only after a couple of weeks of responding only to keep-thinking questions, and with the others, answering a question with a question, smiling, and walking away. When it’s handled this way, students say, “So that’s what’s going on!” and “It’s cool that he told us that.” When working in groups, students also begin monitoring themselves: “Dude! She’s not going to answer that. That’s a stop-thinking question.” 

            Does answering a question with a question and smiling and walking away work for all students? There are some “who can’t get past the fact that you have not answered their question,” says Liljedahl. “This may be because they are insecure about their own abilities, have learned helplessness, or have a spectrum disorder – such as obsessive compulsive disorder – that does not allow them to move forward without resolution.” And students have years of experience in classrooms where their questions get answered. Teachers need to read the situation and know when “a nod, a wink, or an encouraging remark – ‘I have complete confidence that you can figure this out’ – is needed.” 

            Should parents be told about the question-answering policy? Absolutely, says Liljedahl – and parents should hear about it first from the teacher, with an explanation that the goal is to encourage students to do their own thinking and that answering only certain types of questions is part of a deliberate strategy. 

“How We Answer Questions in a Thinking Classroom” by Peter Liljedahl, Chapter 5 in his book, Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics (Corwin, 2021); see Memos 976 and 992 for two other summaries of Liljedahl’s work. Jenn David-Lang recently did a thorough summary of the book in The Main Idea and is making it available to Marshall Memo readers here. Liljedahl can be reached at liljedahl@sfu.ca.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1013 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.