Adolescent Psychology

This may be a shocker, but teachers have a lot on their minds. And when a person has a million things to do and lacks a million minutes to do them in, they tend to speed things up. One place we see this is when the teacher asks the class a question. Too often, the teacher thinks they’ve given students time to process when they haven’t – because the teacher’s brain is running a mile a minute.

The problem is that student brains don’t retrieve information like a search engine. It takes a few seconds for them to locate, pull up, and organize what they know. Unfortunately, the busy teacher often moves on much faster – meaning that many students aren’t able to consider the question long enough to answer it. The students who answer fastest aren’t always the ones who learned the most – they’re just the ones who spoke up first.

What’s the solution? Keep reading!

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Instruction

After asking a question, wait at least 3 seconds before calling on anyone. How? Just count in your head. It doesn’t have to be exact.

It may feel awkward at first. That awkwardness is mostly in the teacher’s brain, not the students’. They’re not focused on you – they’re thinking. Students who would never raise their hand first start participating when they know they have time.

One way to make it easier: Tell students up front that you’re going to give them thinking time before taking answers. It removes the pressure to be first and makes the wait feel intentional rather than uncomfortable.

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Technology

While testing, no technology is superior to a teacher’s eyes on a student’s screen – but some technologies certainly help.

Our school district now has access to a lockdown browser. A lockdown browser locks students to the page they’re on (in this case, the test), preventing them from opening other tabs or windows.

Want to use it? Here’s a link to the instructions. (note: These are the instructions for Respondus in Canvas. They work well for teachers in my district – but if you’re outside of that space, talk to your ed tech department).