| > Idle curiosity is the best attribute (correction: skill) you can ask for in a student (any developer). Stifling it will cause a drop in creative thinking and therefore damage problem solving skills. And meanwhile the rest of us is waiting twiddling fingers, because someone could not google that tangent or asked question anyone who is paying attention could answer. This does not annoy just teacher. It is annoying students who were paying attention and were there whole time way more. > If a student participates just to demonstrate participation, this is usually because the class dynamics (work politics) are skewed against the student (damaging their self-esteem), or the rewards for good performance are not distributed evenly -on merit. When you have one-two people out of over 100 asking such questions all the time in multiple unrelated classes, the issue is not all of us or all those teachers. > If they were participating just for show, you just helped them hone in on their skills and provided guidance on how to better participate in class (meeting/workplace). Please, please, please, don't teach students to make meetings longer by asking tangents. That is for after meeting when those not interested can leave. Meeting moderation is literally about ability to keep discussion on point. |