Can Students Be Too Eager?

This week Zull talked about two students. The student that I would like to focus on is Michelle, the girl that participated constantly, but her comments and questions had no content. When I read this I immediately thought of a student that I had during my student teaching experience. My student would raise her hand often to participate and ask questions, but often times her questions and comments warranted a puppy dog head turn response from me. I was constantly confused about where her questions were coming from. I tried and tried to make connections between what she was asking and what we were talking about in class, but I never could. My mentor teacher would say that she just likes to hear herself talk and would therefore ask anything in order to get a chance to speak during class. When reading this chapter I finally pinpointed my student's questioning, she was Michelle. She was the student with the empty questions. Like Michelle from the book, my student would write long responses on tests and would often explain her way out of the correct answer on test questions. This confused me. How could a student have a test answer correct and then explain in such a way that it was clear that she did not understand? I suspect that my student was struggling to use her reflective brain. She wanted so badly to participate in class discussion that she would not listen to herself or think about her comments before speaking. I may try to encourage her to write out what she is thinking before saying it out loud as a way to get her to reflect on what she says before she speaks.