Open questions lead to more discussion among other students. Teach them to ask open ended questions can open up the discussion even more.

There may be a time for closed questions. When you need to do a very quick review of a concept or process this questioning method is effective. What do you think?

 

I try to use open questions while doing lecture in class.  The students seem to engage more when we do this.  It allows me to have a discussion with the students instead of just standing and lecturing the entire time.  When the students engage this way they seem to remember more of the concepts we cover as they are all participating.  When we havea quiz the following week the scores seem to be higher as they rememeber what was discussed instead of the many words I said during lecture time.