Latest / New Teacher Talk / Ep 160: The Power of the Pause: Wait Time Part 1

Transcript

Ep 160: The Power of the Pause: Wait Time Part 1 · New Teacher Talk

Hello, everyone.
My name is Dr.
Monica Boehle,
and I am the Associate Director of Curriculum for the high
schools in my school district.
Formally, I was a social studies teacher for 27 years,
both at high school and at middle school,
and I served as an instructional coach in my school
district.
Today,
I'm going to talk about something that is straightforward,
yet very challenging, wait time 1.
I know if I said wait time 1,
that does mean and imply that there's a wait time 2,
but that podcast will come out in the spring.
So what is wait time 1?
One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.
That's right.
Wait time one is the planned, brief,
deliberate pause between asking a question and inviting
response to that question.
And so it really helps process and formulate an answer.
So why is it important?
One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.
You already know because the questions we ask are
important.
We use our questions to assess,
to check for misconceptions, to push thinking,
to invite perspectives,
to push kids into the productive struggle so they're in
that zone of proximal development for learning,
to challenge assumptions, to think of the big ideas.
When we don't provide the wait time and we don't have the
students think about the response to our question,
we're letting them off the hook for the learning.
We're saying that only some kids have to think about that
question and the response.
So what happens when we don't use the wait time?
One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.
Yep, lots of things happen.
First of all, the extroverts tend to just process a lot.
They process out loud.
There's students who just kind of dominate the conversation
who don't mind speaking.
Our introverts tend to either zone out or they don't speak
at all.
If you move on too quickly,
people who haven't even thought about the question before
you've moved on,
they've even missed that something happened.
And signals to the climate about what's valued in that
space,
and it's those people who are out there raising their hand
trying to get into the conversation.
When I co-taught in my social studies class at the high
school level and I had a lot of students with IEPs in that
class,
and honestly when I started holding them to the wait time,
I started to see that they had missed many of the questions
that I've asked.
This is the important,
especially for marginalized populations to allow their
voice to be honored and recognized in your learning space.
And here's the thing,
honestly the act of generating a response to a question is
part of the retrieval practice.
It is necessary for long-term retention.
Literally one of the core practices and fundamental tasks
of learning is through skilled questions.
So we know it's powerful.
Why don't we do it?
One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.
For the most part it's accidental.
We just in our heads are moving quickly.
Like maybe there's always this distortion of time.
Maybe we think things are going too slow or things are
going too fast or I need or I get to a certain point in
the lesson.
The distortion of time within your classroom is a real
phenomenon.
Second sometimes we just kind of fear the silence.
You know we think that kids aren't going to respond at
all.
We also might be stuck in a style of questioning that is
called the IRE style: Interrogate. Respond. Evaluate.
And so in that it is a very quick questioning style.
When was Archduke Ferdinand assassinated?
1914,. Correct.
Interregate. Respond. Evaluate.
And it's a very fast.
We're talking about questions that provoke the thinking and
ask kids to delve into their processing and putting complex
ideas together.
And third thing that can happen is we end up in the fisheye
lens.
This is also very realistic for skilled educators is our
perception of things that have happened.
I might walk out of a class and say, "G
osh I had a great discussion today,"
and someone observing might have realized that I had a
great discussion with three students.
We four were really engaged with what was happening,
while 27 sat and either watched or zoned out.
And so we really want to make sure that the fisheye doesn't
occur.
And one way to make that happen is to skillful use of wait
time.
So how do you do
it? One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand.
First, you build it into your culture and climate.
As you set norms,
make sure you explain the importance of valuing everyone's
voice in our community of learners.
I always use humor with my students,
and so we might brainstorm some techniques that help me
remember to use wait time.
I'm a person who talks quickly and I process quickly,
so sometimes I'm somebody who's scooting along far before
other people's processing time.
And so the kids will come up with funny gimmicks for me to
give the processing time.
The second, for really important questions,
you wanna have these pre-planned.
Often what happens with wait time is we ask the question
and then we rephrase it and then rephrase it again,
and we've inadvertently asked four questions,
and none of them really get at the heart of what you're
trying to do.
For the most important questions,
have them written in advance.
I use slides in my classroom,
and so I would have them posted on the slides.
Remember to value both kind of open-ended questions but
also closed-ended questions.
Both of them have instructional value depending on your
purpose and outcomes.
For closed questions,
the wait time might be a little bit more silly,
but for open-ended,
you want it to be a little bit more deliberative so that
students have time to really process.
It depends on your outcome.
A third technique is to pre-pause before asking the
question.
And so this signals that a question is coming and kind of
draws kids' attention back to what you were doing.
In any human, we go in and out of our attentive phase,
and so we have to assume that students kind of zone in and
out.
That is how the human brain works.
And so that signal that a question is coming and it's gonna
be an important one is actually kind of significant.
The fourth technique, just ask the question.
Don't explain it, don't clarify it, don't rephrase it.
If it's the right question, just let it kind of sit.
Sometimes I'll even say,
we're gonna admire this question for a second,
and then we're gonna process it.
And let them know that sometimes there's a lot of value in
really kind of thinking about what it's asking us.
That allows the question to kind of sit and linger with the
classroom.
And then, last part,
you need to have a strategy for the wait time.
I've seen people use timers.
You heard me on this podcast episode go one, 1,000, two,
1,000, three, 1,000.
That's a technique I use to slow myself down and make
myself smile because it's a little ridiculous.
I have seen teachers do the popsicle stick draw where they
have student names on a popsicle stick,
or there's an app you can use where it does like Wheel of
Fortune and a student name pops up.
Some of my favorite strategies have to do with a pairing
and a sharing,
but my favorite one is each student has a scratch paper at
their table or a post-it note, something small,
so it doesn't feel overwhelming.
And every time I ask a question,
they have to jot down a response,
and I won't take oral responses until everybody has
something written down.
So at least I can ensure that 100% of my students process
the question that was asked.
Another one of my favorites is in putting k
ids into teams of three have roles, A, B, C, and when I ask the question, they all have to like hold their breath for like five seconds. Then they talk in their team of three, and then I'll say, times up, spokesperson up, and I'm gonna be like, whoever was the A in your group, it's your turn to speak. And I'll have seven to eight kids stand up, and they'll have to share out what their group was saying. And sometimes that natural wait time and processing time comes along together.
The importance of wait time 1cannot be underestimated.
It has been studied pretty widely since the 1970s,
and every study indicates that it improves student
learning, responses are lengthier,
that you can see the deliberation,
and it really draws out our introverted students into a
more public way of sharing their ideas.
There are so many ways to do it,
and so many different things you can try in order to make
sure wait time 1 happens.
On the resource that is attached to this podcast,
I put a silly graphic that just says, stop, breathe, one,
two, three.
Sometimes for you, taking that breath,
making sure that you're not speaking so much because that
takes the air time away from students,
really allowing the question to settle over the class.
Wait time 1, remember that deliberate pause.
We ask a question,
give it at least three to five seconds of processing time.
Sometimes when it's a bigger question,
we go into a discussion strategy, but it's a question,
it's a pause and process, and then we respond.
I really hope that you enjoyed the podcast today,
something straightforward you can implement right away.
Take a deep breath, embrace the silence and do wait time 1.
This is Dr.
Monica Boehle, and we'll see you soon on another podcast.
Thanks for spending part of your day with us on New Teacher
Talk.
Stay in the loop by following @NewTeacherTalk on Instagram
and Blue Sky.
That's where we share our Tuesday Teacher Resource and
Thursday Thoughts.
If today's chat was helpful,
hit the follow and share it with your teaching squad.
No matter what classroom you're in, we're here for you.