In the past few months, I have taken mental note of how many times I use the phrase, “Does that make sense?” when explaining a new concept to a student. I have noted that this phrase merely asks my students to affirm something and doesn’t really ask them to demonstrate that they truly understand a concept. While I have had these observations in the back of my mind for a while, I recently read this article in the Harvard Business Review: Never Ask ‘Does That Make Sense?’
The author of the article states that this phrase implies two things:
- Uncertainty on the part of the speaker about the accuracy or credibility of the content
- Doubt about the ability of the audience to comprehend or appreciate the content.
Obviously this is not something that we want to imply when teaching a new concept. I would suggest that the phrase also implies that our teaching explanation may not be the best for the situation…which might indeed be true, but how is the student supposed to know that? Most students don’t really know if they don’t understand something until weeks and months down the road. So, while we may be truly trying to determine if our explanation is effective with this particular student, the student is not always the best judge of whether this is true.
What question then should we be asking? While I don’t have a definitive answer, I’d like to suggest that perhaps we should take a cue from counselors and professionals in the art of communication. When we want to be sure that we ourselves understand what someone is telling us, it is a good idea to try to articulate what the person said in our own words, using phrases such as, “So what you are saying is….”
So, to turn that around on our students, perhaps after an explanation about a concept, perhaps we could ask them to pretend they are the teacher and explain the concept to us.
Thinking about this issue and other things I observe about my teaching, leads me to conclude that I ask a lot of closed questions to my students: questions that have a specific answer. I think that if we could ask more open ended questions in our lessons, we would get a lot more clues about whether our students are understanding or not. I think of my feeble efforts to get one of my children to tell me about their day at school. Asking them, “How was school today?” allows for one word answers: fine or good. But, when I frame the question in an open manner, I get much more informative results: “Tell me about school today.”
So to bring this back to teaching piano, I think that a week after I have presented a new concept (like half notes), I’m going to try asking my students, “So, tell me about half notes.” If they look at me with a blank stare, I’ll try asking them to relate them to the senses: “What does a half note look like, sounds like, feel like?” I might even try to be funny and ask them to tell me what it tastes like.
I think “never” might too strong of a word for the title of this article as I’m sure there is a time when this question is appropriate (and I try to rarely use superlatives as it almost always gets me in trouble!), but it seemed perfectly appropriate considering the WSJ article.
What do you think? What kind of open ended questions do you ask of your students? How do you determine if the concept “makes sense” to them without asking them if it makes sense?
These are great thoughts to consider! I usually only ask my adult students if something makes sense, knowing that they are able to communicate better if something doesn’t make sense. For kids, I ask questions to see what their level of knowledge is about whatever we are talking about. This article made me re-think how I can make my questions better, though, especially for the students who merely grunt when asked a question or always nod their head in agreement! 🙂
I had the same insights recently. I knew I was phrasing my questions inadequately. I purchased a booklet by Merienne Uszler, “That’s a Good Question”, and it opened some new windows for me. Lately I have asked more questions where my students do their own evaluation. They are sometimes so spot on and I did not have to say it.
These are great thoughts! When I’m teaching, I sometimes try to turn things around and reverse roles. I’ll open the book to the current page and say, “so, what did we learn about last week in this unit?” or “last week we discovered a brand new rhythm, can you tell me about it?” I try to ask the question in a really positive tone of voice, inviting them to share something with me that’s exciting! If I get a blank look, I’ll try more focused questions, but I always try to get them to define the concepts for me. If I hear them “teaching” me about what they learned, then I know they’re grasping the concept.
Thanks . . . This is something I really need to work on! Any more insights on hiw to know that students grasp a concept would be appreciated.
This takes me back to my former profession of teaching reading. A well known reading comprehension methodology book was inspired when a young student asked the author, “What does it mean to make sense?” (Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Oliver Keene–Heinemann Publishing)
You’ve been a fly on my studio wall again!! If I had a nickel for every time I’ve used that phrase! Sometimes I ask my students to “be the teacher” and teach me about the new concept. Sometimes they play along (though it is easier for them to demonstrate than put it into words)…other times they just give me a blank look so I go another route 🙂
I tell each new student to be prepared to answer the question “which practice technique helped you the most to get this far this week?” -and if a student has achieved their goal, I do ask that question. So they don’t hear that question every week of course, especially if they haven’t reached their goal. But I remind them to be prepared to answer that question the following week.
Great topic! I find the longer I teach (7 years now) the more I try to ask pointed questions that involve students playing and listening to themselves. The more they play, the better our lesson goes, so “show me…” is always a good one. I’ve also been trying this year to have students do more self- evaluation, so I’ll ask things like “how did this B section change from last week’s lesson to today?” or “what’s the difference between this crescendo and the one at the end of the piece.”
I use that phrase quite frequently. I completely disagree that it implies uncertainty or doubt. When I ask “does that make sense” I’m really asking “did the way I explain the concept work for you or do I need to try a different approach?” Early on, with new students, I’ll even follow up the first question with the second. If a kid is completely clueless after 2 or 3 different explanations or demonstrations then I tend to think they’re not ready to understand the concept and I revisit it later.
I don’t necessarily agree with the author about what the phrase conveys to our students. I think he was commenting on that phrase as it is used in a public context. But, since I noted even before the article that it’s a phrase I already use too often, his thoughts were certainly of interest to me. I just think there are better questions and phrases to use with my students. I do have 1-2 students that I think “Does that make sense?” works at times, but even with these students, I think that I could use more precise language to see if the concept was learned.
You are right that the question can be a springboard into exploring different ways of explaining a concept.
Today I was teaching a piece of music where there was a STEM UP soprano line and a STEM DOWN alto line. The student could not make sense of the notation. After explaining this to her I simply asked – Could you explain what I just said in your own words? What this did was help me see the DEGREE OF HER UNDERSTANDING. And it gave me an opportunity to go over a couple points that she didn’t fully understand.