A
s seen from the table above questions are teachers’ property. The data show that teaching and learning in our school is directed by the teachers. The teaching process is teacher-centered. Students must answer questions set by teachers and books. They are not seen as a subject of lessons able to produce questions. Very few teachers have tried to put the issue of student questioning in the spotlight: how much and how do they ask? Little thought has been given to the quality and frequency of students’ questions.
I
f we put the above results in a cake shaped diagrams will see a large cake which is divided into two parts where its 92 % is consumed by teachers and only 8 % of it is consumed by students. It is not difficult to note “how much weight of knowledge is put on” by students by this model of teaching.
T
o have a better idea about the quality of questions asked during classes according to
Artur SULA, Irena Ndoci LAMA, Mimoza GJOKUTAJ. Improving the Quality of Learning through the Questions of Texts
learning levels a practical exercise was given to teachers and university students to see the level of questions that they themselves make about a photo.
Figure 1: Photo given to teachers and university students.
O
nce given the above figure the trainees were asked to write three questions about the image. Questions they developed were grouped in this way:
1. What is she called? Where is she? How old is she?
2. What is she doing? Why is she laughing? What color are her eyes?
3. Why is she lying? Is she in Skype? Is she listening to music?
Table 2. Questions developed by teachers around the given picture.
City
Number of teachers
Open-ended questions
%
Closed-ended questions
%
Tiranë
130
180
69
80
31
Durrës
70
90
64
50
36
Shkodër
70
82
58
58
42
Dibër
40
50
62
30
38
Korcë
55
70
63
40
36
Total
365
472
62
258
38
A
s seen from Table 2, about 62 % of the questions are closed-ended questions, which shows what kind of teaching is given in our schools. So 62 % of teachers working in Albanian schools have a traditional direction of teaching and use only questions of the reproductive type which stop at the first level of questions, at the level of cognitive learning and reproduction.
I
f only 38 % of questions are of creative character, evaluation, interpretation, this means that teaching and learning are more oriented towards reproductive learning and less reflective.
I
t must be said in advance that the authors of texts, the data of which are offered, are specialists and teachers from various subject fields who have provided banks of questions into the textbooks pedagogical apparatus without being aware of the taxonomy of questions because of lack of didactic training.
T
he questions included in the textbooks analyzed have been classified under six levels so that