Probing Issues
I think probing is a great technique to guiding students to the correct answer but I also find it to be intimidating for students at times. How soon should you redirect the question to another student that may be experiencing this?
I think that's an excellent question and observation. In my experience, I think the probe kind of decides. With probing you get a feel for their knowledge level. So with a student you feel just can't get there, time to redirect... But I also like to go back to that original student, with the same question, shortly.
Excellent Question! I believe it may be based on the complexity of the question as well as the intelligence level of the student. If I find that the student has a more difficult time answering the questions or understanding concepts I may as them another question to attempt stimulate the student into remembering the answer.
I've often wondered this myself. If you keep asking too much, I fear the student will regress into themselves out of feeling "dumb" because they are not saying what you are looking for fast enough. We live in a fast society. If something isn't fast, oftentimes the student thinks they are wrong. I think keeping a positive outlook on incomplete or "almost" answers is extremely important to get across to the classroom.
I think that probing questions are very important as a learning tool. This allows the students to be prepared for the class by reading the relivent chapters and researching the topics. This is part of students prepration(s), this also gives the the independance to shine in their knowledge basis.
