A Question About Questions

As you already know, when I taught Christy's class last week, I asked the students to fill out a survey on my performance. Overall, they were very positive, however, one thing came up that I wanted to bring up here so we can discuss it: asking effective questions and listening effectively.

After class last week, Christy and I talked about the "asking effective questions" comment. She told me that, for the most part, she thought that my questions were fine but pointed out one potential issue: asking questions that are too simple. I asked these questions mostly to make sure that the students were following along, but, because they were too simple or obvious, the students automatically assumed I was asking a trick question. I had never considered that before.

The "simple question" issue seems to illustrate just how complicated it is to ask questions in a lesson. So my question is: how do you ask "good" questions? How do you get students to discuss?

I think that Erin hit upon a great point in her post: turn the focus to the students. The class isn't about the teacher but about the students. That seems to be a good starting place. But what else can we do?

Any ideas?