#17 Be aware of Wait Time 2
Give students enogh thinknig time between the answer and your response
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💡 A quick tip to try in class this week 💡
Last week, we discussed the importance of increasing the time between asking students a question and calling upon them to respond. In the research world, this is called wait time.
But there is another wait time we need to be aware of: the time between students sharing an answer and us making our next move. I think of this as the opportunity to let a student's answer hand in the air.
Researcher, Mary Budd-Rowe suggests that if we can increase this second wait time to a minimum of 3 seconds, we are likely to see the following benefits:
Students have an opportunity to reflect on their peer's answer and compare it to their own
Behaviour and attention improves
Student-to-student exchanges increaseÂ
Teachers use student responses better
There are two important factors we need to consider here. The first is actually increasing this second type of wait time. Like last week, I find the technique of tapping our 3 seconds on my leg after a student responds to be effective.
But we must also encourage our students to make the most of this time. Research into self-explaining suggests that the majority of students do not do it naturally. If we just let an answer hang in the air, our students may look at us like we are a YouTube video that is buffering. So we may need to prompt them to reflect silently on their peer's response: How does this answer compare to mine? What is the same and what is different?
Harry Fletcher-Wood writes brilliantly about this second type of wait time in this classic 2013 blog post here
What would you need to change to make this tip work for you?
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📺 A video to discuss with a colleague 📺
English teacher, Mark Roberts, discusses the danger of giving students (especially boys) negative managerial feedback.
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👂 A podcast episode to listen to on your way home 👂
Teacher and podcaster, Ollie Lovell, shares his five tips:
How to overcome the limits of working memory
Backwards plan. ALWAYS backwards plan!
Check for understanding
Inquire into mechanisms
You can learn something from everybodyÂ
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