Asking good questions is an important lecturer responsibility, yet it is often done ineffectively, and few students respond. Some general suggestions for asking questions follow.

• Ask some questions that are pitched at a level that most students could answer so that more than just the highest-achieving students have a chance to participate.
• Try a mix of close-ended and open-ended questions. Asking closed questions, ones with a correct answer or a limited number of correct responses, enables you to make a quick assessment of student understanding of the information they have just heard. In addition, some students will simply be more comfortable answering a question for which they are sure they know the answer. Asking open-ended questions, when there is not necessarily a right or wrong answer, enables you to stimulate discussion and interaction, allow for speculation, and allow students some opportunities to share ideas, information, and opinions. And some students will be more enthusiastic about responding if they have a chance to share their ideas and opinions.
• Ask specific questions. Asking a question such as “Are there any more questions?” almost guarantees that students will not participate, particularly if class is nearly over and they see an opportunity to leave soon if they don't respond.

Responding to students' answers to your questions can also be challenging. Some general suggestions follow.

• Address the question's quality. If it's a good question, say so, and then answer it. If it's tangential, acknowledge that as well by saying something along the lines of, “That's really interesting but a little off of our point, so I'll be happy to talk to you after class.”
• Try to stay on point. If you go off on a tangent, students can have difficulty determining what the answer to the question was.
• Address the whole class when you respond to the answer, rather than the one student. You are addressing the class, not having a conversation with a single student.

In addition to these general suggestions, in this chapter, we offer Tips related to asking and answering student questions. We summarize these Tips in Exhibit 13.1.