The (Soul-Crushing) Sound of Silence
By Lew Ludwig
You’ve done your part. You presented the material, laid the groundwork, and gave the possible arguments. The air is ripe with anticipation. Your teaching senses tingle. It is time to ask a well-phrased question demonstrating that your students are ready to take their learning to the next level.
How often have I been at this critical moment in my classroom, only to have my hopes dashed?
Scenario 1: The “Hermione Granger” student shoots up her hand with other students passively watching. Or worse, in her excitement, she blurts out the answer or idea before the other students even have time to digest the question.
Scenario 2: The “extroverted risk-taker” offers his opinion. Not that the answer is necessarily correct, but he has been rewarded over the years for his willingness to contribute to the class discussion, if for nothing else than breaking the dreaded silence.
Scenario 3: The entire class reverts to the “predator-prey model” or “T-rex strategy,” as my colleague calls it. The students (the prey) know that if they sit still and avoid eye contact, the professor (the predator) will overlook them and move to the next victim.
Of course, there are variations, but the three options presented cover a large swath of what I’ve experienced in the classroom. To overcome this, consider adopting a partner strategy to battle this, where students must explain their answers to their partners. To ensure everyone has a partner, pair students together every few weeks, and make sure they sit with their partners during the class.
Practitioners may recognize this process as think-pair-share: pose a question, let students think independently about the question, discuss their ideas with their partner, then share with the whole class. As I have been known to mess these up, let’s take each in turn.
Think
After posing the question, provide time for the thinking part and do not jump straight to the “tell your neighbor.” In my own Hermione-like excitement, I often skip the thinking part. Then instead of single option 1, 2, or 3 for the whole class, I have paired versions throughout the entire class. My Hermiones quickly tell their neighbor the answer, my extroverted risk-takers start pontificating, and my scenario-three pairs stare at their notes, avoiding eye contact with the partner next to them.
For the thinking part, silence is vital. After posing the question, or better yet, writing it on the board or projecting it, give students time to think. To help make this time productive, tell students how long they have and have them write something down. For something quick, “take 30 seconds to write the solution, idea, etc. for [topic].” For something longer, “let’s take two minutes to write down as many things we can recall about [topic].”
Pair:
Now the tricky part. How do you know the pairs are sharing equitably? Well, often you don’t. One of the ways I combat this is by changing the pairings about every three weeks. If a particular pair is not equitable, this may slip my gaze in the first class or two. But over three weeks of circulating the classroom as pairs discuss, I better understand how various pairs interact and can nudge accordingly.
Sometimes, student A legitimately knows more than student B. That’s fine. Student A needs to explain things in a way that student B understands. And student B must question if they do not grasp what A is saying.
Share:
How can you make sure the pairing went well? Call on a student to share their partner’s answer and whether they agree or disagree. If student A did their job, student B should be able to share A’s key points. This also lessens the cold call anxiety some students experience as they answer for their partner, not themselves.
But which group to call on? Again, I could be better at this and am probably biased. I know some colleagues roll a die. The website “rolladie.net” allows you to choose from 4-,6-,8-,10-,12-, or 20-sided dies. Have 18 students or nine pairs? one of my colleagues would roll a 10-sided die with student pairs numbered 1-9. If she rolled a 10, she answered the question!
Of course, there are variations on the think-pair-share theme. If you do not want to bother with pairs, consider warm calling, as explained by Dr. Floyd Cheung.
By contrast, cold calling is when the professor asks a question to a student at random, and without warning, to answer. Hot calling is when the professor calls on the student who raises their hand first, as Hermione Granger does routinely at Hogwarts.
Warm calling requires the professor to give everyone the opportunity to think after asking a question. We might give students a chance to write for a minute, or we might give them a moment to consider their thoughts on their own before turning to a classmate to exchange ideas. This is their warm-up. Then, the professor must call on random students to speak. Usually, I ask at least two students from different parts of the classroom to start, and I let the warm conversation heat up by inviting students to raise their hands to offer their thoughts.
We may feel like precious learning moments are ticking by, but students need time to collect and focus their thoughts. Cognitive psychologists argue that students will learn more in two minutes of silent struggle on a topic than in listening to someone lecture on that topic for the same amount of time. Whether you use think-pair-share or warm calling, these approaches force us to embrace that nerve-wracking silence.
Upside:
More students are engaged with the material
The partner grouping can help build class community
Students find warm calling more equitable
Downside:
That soul-crushing silence
Lew Ludwig is a professor of mathematics and the Director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at Denison University. An active member of the MAA, he recently served on the project team for the MAA Instructional Practices Guide and was the creator and senior editor of the MAA’s former Teaching Tidbits blog.