Wait Five Beats

In Five beats from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin shares,

“Wait for five beats. Kneejerk is not an admirable trait.”

This is really hard for my students because I believe that when you are young, you want to act fast and act now. Being patient is not easy to do.

I also think that teachers tend to encourage this kneejerk behavior because we ask for an answer and if the student doesn’t answer quickly, we assume that they don’t know the answer. Instead, students process the question at different speeds and it may take some longer to understand the question than others.

I remember as a student that I had a fear that I would be chosen to answer that the fear crowded out the knowledge. If I knew that answer, the panic took precedence over the answer and I was unable to answer the question.

When I was learning to wait before expecting an answer, it felt like the wait time was so long! But the more I practiced it, the easier it was to do.

First I would explain to the class that I would ask a question to the entire class and then wait for everyone to have time to process the question. I didn’t want anyone to raise their hand until I asked for them to do so or I might ask someone specific. This would give everyone time to process the question.

I would ask students to give me a thumbs up if they were ready to answer the question and then wait a little longer for the others if needed. Then I would tell students if they were unsure, to put their thumb out to the side and if they didn’t know the answer to put their thumbs down. This helped many to save face and let me know who I might need to help individually.

When I started to do this, students were more engaged and participated in the question and answer session. Students lost that panicked look of having to have an answer immediately. There was more thoughtful pondering when I asked a question. It also kept students from guessing at answers and throwing out wrong answers. These wrong answers could be confusing to those still trying to process the question.

Do you give wait time before asking questions? Please share your experience.

Photo by Xu Haiwei on Unsplash

Engaging Students in the Classroom

Yesterday I attended a professional development seminar at Furman University. The topic was Engaging Students in the College Classroom: Strategies from the Theater. The presenters were Jayce and Anne Tromsness.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 hour session and could see how it could easily become a full day session. We seemed to touch the surface of things but didn’t have time to go in depth. It made me want to learn more about the strategies.

There were about 13 of us and from all different departments. It was great to talk to people from other departments and see that we all struggle with many of the same issues.

We talked about the similarities between a director of a production and the instructor. We also talked about how every situation is a story.

Then we discussed strategies for positive engagement and I want to share some of my notes with you.

Don’t blame the audience – lower your status but becoming vulnerable. Share something personal (but don’t go too far) about yourself. Audiences love a vulnerable character. Admit when you don’t know the answer.

Teacher as performer – Teaching is action. Make it simple, based on a verb, something you can do. Look at the process more than the end result.

Listen to William Ball = find the positive. “That was great but…” Rephrase what they say and scaffold to the right answer but using some of their words. Go with the offer that sequences to the right answer.

Incorporate the 3D’s: Discovery, Disclosure, Decision. – Disclosure is like Quincy (TV show) talking to Sam, Disclosure is the aha moments, Decision is the forward action. Make sure you disclose (introduce), discover (reveal and expostulate), and decide (give a definite conclusion). Decision should be the last thing before the class leaves.

Listen to Stanislavski – for the passive student. “whatever is on the buffet table that works for you”; ex: Do you have experience with this situation? If no experience, substitute the closest thing. If that doesn’t work, this situation would be as ____ in order to relate to it. (There is no way out of doing/answering/participating).

Establishing the Given Circumstances – organizing the players. Use CRO/OWW – character, relationship, objective, obstacle, where, and when. We learn through story.

Work with the Stimulus/Response model – too much emphasis on the response and not enough on the stimulus, which leads to more memorization.

The Rabbit Hole – come up with a central idea. Then come up with immediate responses on this (words, songs, etc.). Then where does that lead. Everything is related and we just have to discover what that is.

Quick Exercises for In-Class engagement
1. Anonymity – Beginning of class; index cards, post it notes – what don’t we know. End of class: what do we know now.
2. Connection – I-circle (statement – all who agree move into the middle of the circle); word ball
3. Paraphrase – direct answers or text,, ideas, or practical application
4. 5 minute challenges – improvised or written – presenting an idea, moment, or concept as a story
5. What happens next? What do you do next?
6. Once Upon a Time exercise – one sentence for plot review for each person in the circle. Set a time limit.
7. Creating CRO/OWW with unit/subject and having the characters interact

Image: 'Queue The Last Act'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11248435@N04/9586318592
Found on flickrcc.net

Getting Kids to Participate

In How do you attain participation?  from Learn Me Good by Mister Teacher, he asks,

“Instead, my question is, How do you attain participation in class? We always seem to have those kids that come in day after day with nothing better to do than try to impersonate a brick. Sometimes these are kids who do fantastic on tests, but they never talk in class. Sometimes they are kids who fail horribly in class and never raise their hands in class. Sometimes it's the vast majority of the class!...So any other strategies out there? How do you get participation from your ‘bricks?’”

This reminded me of all those students I taught who would never participate. I had to start of thinking about why they don’t participate and address those issues first. I think by knowing the reasons, I could give alternatives. At first it looks like the students are being oppositional and refuse to cooperative. But then I realized that many of them were just afraid. They were afraid of failure and of being laughed at by other students.

I started thinking about my own reason for wanting them to participate. My objective was to find out if they understood the material or remembered the information. Was it that important that they answered out loud in front of the class?

All of my students had a small square block that was green on one side and red on the other. They used these when they needed help. I decided to use this as a response tool so I started to ask true/false questions about the material. When I counted to 3, everyone had to turn their blocks to the answer (green for true and red for false). This really increases student participation!

Another strategy I used was having them work in teams of 2 to study material. After giving them time to study, I had a small competition between teams. More students felt comfortable answering because they weren’t alone anymore. I know I feel braver when I have someone backing me up.

I also tried to figure out alternative ways to assess my student’s knowledge. Sometimes I offered a choice of activities and let the students chose the one that they were most comfortable with. This really showed me that my students knew more than I expected. If the students were creating something new with the skills they learned, I didn’t have to worry about cheating or behavior problems. Most of the students were engaged and excited about this lesson.

If I had a student who still refused to participate, I would meet with that student individually and try to find out the problem. I would even offer to let the students come up with their own suggestions if it would meet my objective. By doing this, the students really had no excuse why they wouldn’t participate.

Once I have exhausted all options, it is time to call the parent. Usually at this point, there is more to the student’s lack of motivation than anything I can control.

What do you do to increase participation in your class?

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original image: 'Mapeado del Itinerario 1 (Zonas Verdes)'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92402547@N00/3523048197 by: LaFundició