Cartoons about Teachers and Students Asking Questions during Lessons

Anyone who has taught elementary or secondary school students know that questions are a huge part of teaching. I include both student and teacher questions. From an English teacher asking a student to use the word “inescapable” in a sentence to the student asking: “May I go to the bathroom?” questions pervade classroom lessons.

But exactly how many questions do teachers ask? A two-decade old research article summarized research on teacher questioning.

Research has shown that teachers ask a high frequency of questions. In 1960, Floyd (1960) developed a study
with 40 elementary teachers and found that these teachers asked 93 percent of all classroom questions. Also during
the 60s, Schreiber (1967) found that fifth grade teachers asked about 64 questions each during 30-minute social
studies lessons. Later, Levin and Long (1981) conducted a review of effective teaching research and concluded that
teachers asked 300-400 questions per day. Cotton (1988) suggested that teachers spend half of the class time asking questions. These numbers confirm the results obtained by Stevens in her precursor study about classroom
questioning conducted in 1912. This author also found that teachers dominated the verbal interaction in class, asking
in average 400 questions each day. Stevens (1912) concluded that 80% of the class time was spent with the teacher‟s
questions and the students‟ answers. In 1994, Graesser and Person (1994) found that the teacher‟s questions
corresponded to 96% of all questions raised in class. These authors also concluded that a teacher asks, in average, 69
questions per hour, what corresponds to 30000 questions per year! In 2002, Kerry reinforced these numbers, noting
that if teachers ask an average of 43.6 questions per hour, in an average career they are likely to ask about 2 million
questions.

So for this month, I have gathered a bunch of cartoons about teacher and student questions during lessons. Some are biting, some are funny, and some reveal the importance of asking questions. Enjoy!