Asking Questions in Class Meetings


We encourage students to ask questions in class.  This can be hard to do for some students, due perhaps to a combination of shyness and/or self-consciousness.  Certainly all students should try to overcome these impediments, as these should never be the reason that you don't ask a question in class. 

But there are also some related difficult questions -- about what are the best sorts of questions to ask, and what is the best venue for which kinds of questions.  After all, classroom meetings are lectures, not private tutoring, and naturally there are corresponding differences in how the matter of questions should be handled. 


Here are some bits of advice that might help you when you are thinking about asking a question:
  1. If your question is about a big idea that we have just introduced, or a subtle or complex step that your instructor has just done in an argument, keep in mind that probably other students are wondering about it too!  If everyone waits for someone else to ask the question, then it never gets asked... 
     
  2. In addition to the students that are wondering about the same question you are, note also that there are probably other students who may also have not understood, but who might not even have realized that they missed something! 
     
  3. If you have a question about how an idea we are discussing in the lecture may relate to something from an earlier lecture, you might be on to a great observation.  Very often these are wonderful questions!  Depending on the situation your instructor might not be able to elaborate fully on such a possible connection, but they might either note that the full explanation is coming later in the course, or suggest that they could give you a full discussion in office hours.
     
  4. If it has been a while since anyone has asked a question, note that asking a question can be an appreciated change of pace for the lecture.  So not only might it not be a distraction from the presentation, it might even help the presentation!
     
  5. Of course there are limitations on how many questions can realistically be asked in a class meeting; and time spent on questions is time that then cannot be spent on other things.  A lecture is unfortunately different from private tutoring, in that all students have this shared interest.  So some judiciousness with questions is appropriate. 

    The instructor will try to manage this somewhat; but your judgment in this is still important -- if everyone filters themselves and asks only their best questions, then that leaves time for other students' best questions, and the entire class benefits accordingly!
     
  6. If your question is about something relatively low-level (perhaps a point of algebra, in the computation of a triple integral), then you might consider not asking in class.  These sorts of things can be clarified after class or in office hours, and missing a low-level point should not impede you from following the rest of the lecture. 

    Also, waiting for office hours will give you a chance to think about it on your own first, and possibly even figure it out for yourself.  If you can do this, that's the ideal -- there is great benefit in working through something on your own.  If you can do this, that is ultimately better for your learning.

    On the other hand, if you think the instructor might have made an oops, and are pretty confident about it, it is entirely possible that you might be right!  Something like that can be a great question, as correcting the record will help the rest of the class avoid future confusion when going over their notes.
     
  7. If you didn't hear something that the instructor said, for whatever reason, think about whether the lectures for the course are being recorded -- if they are, then the best solution is just to make a quick annotation of the time in your notes and go back and listen to the recording later.  In most cases, you should not ask the instructor to repeat what they just said.  (And of course, these sorts of circumstances would be best resolved in the future by being more focused in the lectures.)
     
  8. Similar to the above, if you find yourself with only a partial understanding of something that your instructor said, and if you think that hearing it again would be all that you need to understand the rest of it, again the best solution is to make a quick annotation in your lecture notes and go back and listen to the recording later.  While asking immediately would be highly appropriate in a private tutoring context, in the lecture context this is not the most appropriate and effective use of class time. 

    Keep in mind that it is not expected that students will fully understand absolutely everything immediately in a lecture (see a more detailed discussion of this point on the Course Design and Strategy page of this website).  It is a healthy and important part of the learning process to grapple with confusion and overcome it; this sort of experience is essential to becoming better at learning math!
     
  9. If your question is a digression (for example, in a class on multivariable calculus, asking how the tools we study in that course are used to understand the heat equation in physics), then even though it might be a great question it is probably something that the rest of the class does not need to hear about.  Such a question then might be a great choice to ask in office hours. 


Of course when you are thinking about asking, you might not be entirely sure which of the above might apply to your question...  No problem!  If you ask, and if the instructor thinks there is a better venue for that question, they will just say so -- no harm done!  :)