Tacking onto this: Promote their critical thinking and googling skills by either asking them 'leading' questions or working off their current solution/code.
Context: I teach mathematics for a living, so when interacting with students I always ask to see what working they've done first, or what they think, and then work from there. Sometimes when they ask questions I respond with a 'leading' question that ideally leads them down the correct logical path.
It's hard to consistently get right and heavily dependent on the student, but a generic conversation might be:
Jr: How do I do $task?
Me: Did you have any ideas to begin with?
Jr: There's $idea1 and possibly $idea2.
Me: OK, how would you do $idea1? What do you need to know to execute $idea1?
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Matthew. This is the most terrible thing you can do to me in a work or school environment, it doesn't matter. I understand the reason you do it and in many cases it probably proves successful but for those people like me please just provide the answer and simply be specific and complete as to why that is the answer.
If the answer is sufficiently substantiated then I can continue what I'm doing. When I ask somebody how to perform $task it is never the main task but just a step towards whatever I want to achieve.
I can figure out myself that if I have two or three possible solutions/directions I simply have to explore them both and I'm sure I am not alone in the universe with this natural ability. Someone who does not should not be solving problems.
The last thing I want is every time that I need a binary answer, some teacher has the bright idea to make it a riddle and reflect on it extensively or involve the entire class. It is inefficient and annoying and it completely shuts me off preventing me to provide any type of helpful response.
That all being said. I am well aware that I am sometimes different than others so please do not interpret this as criticism. You are a teacher and I am not so you know better.
Tacking onto this: Promote their critical thinking and googling skills by either asking them 'leading' questions or working off their current solution/code.
Context: I teach mathematics for a living, so when interacting with students I always ask to see what working they've done first, or what they think, and then work from there. Sometimes when they ask questions I respond with a 'leading' question that ideally leads them down the correct logical path.
It's hard to consistently get right and heavily dependent on the student, but a generic conversation might be:
Jr: How do I do $task?
Me: Did you have any ideas to begin with?
Jr: There's $idea1 and possibly $idea2.
Me: OK, how would you do $idea1? What do you need to know to execute $idea1?
Matthew. This is the most terrible thing you can do to me in a work or school environment, it doesn't matter. I understand the reason you do it and in many cases it probably proves successful but for those people like me please just provide the answer and simply be specific and complete as to why that is the answer.
If the answer is sufficiently substantiated then I can continue what I'm doing. When I ask somebody how to perform $task it is never the main task but just a step towards whatever I want to achieve.
I can figure out myself that if I have two or three possible solutions/directions I simply have to explore them both and I'm sure I am not alone in the universe with this natural ability. Someone who does not should not be solving problems.
The last thing I want is every time that I need a binary answer, some teacher has the bright idea to make it a riddle and reflect on it extensively or involve the entire class. It is inefficient and annoying and it completely shuts me off preventing me to provide any type of helpful response.
That all being said. I am well aware that I am sometimes different than others so please do not interpret this as criticism. You are a teacher and I am not so you know better.
Thanks for this Matthew, great tip!