Don't be afraid of a silence: How to help students know what to do when they don't know what to do

Silences in the classroom are a tricky thing. You ask a question and normally there are a thousand children trying to yell their answers at you. But today, there's nothing. Blank faces stare back and you hear the clock tick for the first time. At this point the novice teacher goes into panic mode and practically gives the answer away. Yet this is precisely the wrong tack.

Sagiv (1999) found that giving people 'tools' for learning, rather than 'answers', better enabled the tool-holder to be successful in the future. This is also the case for the classroom. Recently I asked my business studies class for a definition of "gross profit". They stared blankly. I stared back. After about 30 seconds a rather creepy feeling came over the room. Students began looking at each other, then back at me, pleading for the answer. Still, I held strong and asked the fateful question, "Well, if we don't know, what do we do now?"


Still more silence; yet more staring. I reassured students that I would wait for them to figure it out, after all if they go to university unable to find out simple pieces of information I will have failed. Slowly they suggested ideas: "Should we look in a textbook?" "Be my guest", I answered. "Would it be on the internet?" one asked. "It might", I edged, cryptically.

In all, it took 15 minutes to find our answer but during that time students learned how to use glossaries, read (and not just click on) Wikipedia and searched content pages. Since then they remember what gross profit is AND -- more critically -- if there is a silence they know what to do next.

As my first teaching mentor told me: "Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do". Sometimes, silence breeds intelligence.

Website of the week: Screedbot

Screedbot is a simple, free and easy-to-use website that provides scrolling text messages. Write in your text and it converts it into a .gif . Copy and paste this into powerpoint and you can have scrolling messages on your screen as students enter. Helpful when you're trying to deal with getting students settled and need to display interesting instructions for those who settle themselves.

3 tips for whole-class discussions.....

Whole-class discussions are a brilliant way of sharing ideas on a topic. Facilitating it, however, can be an ordeal. Here are three 3 tips for making whole-class discussion easier:

Tip 1: Let students discuss their ideas with a partner first. Usually, I provide the question/topic for discussion before giving students a chance to write down their own thoughts. Then, I give a few minutes to talk to a person nearby. Finally we move onto whole class discussion. I promise, if you do this, your discussions will be more inciteful and will have more people speaking than if you start with everyone talking.

Tip 2: Use a conch; i.e. any item that learners must hold if they are speaking. No conch, no talking. It doesn't matter what you use for a conch, but if you can make it something fun students get more involved. My first conch was my Liverpool FC bear but it was too political for some football fans. I now alternate between a koosh ball and a light-up skull!


Tip 3: Use a 'speaker's map' to tame loud students. Some learners are so enthused by the debate they talk a lot. To keep them interested but quieter ask them to be 'map maker'. Simply this involves sitting with the class list and ticking next to the name of each person speaking. For you, this keeps track of who is speaking and you have a record for assessment.

The more complicated version involves students drawing lines between those speaking - hence 'mapping'. THis is really good for seeing if certrain groups take over, or if the conch is only passing among friendship groups.

Finally, the super-complicated but brilliant way of doing this is that the 'mapper' has a sign that they can hold up when someone has spoken more than a set number of times. This signals that the person has a responsibility to get others involved and that they must now take a 'back-seat' in the conversation. In fact, this can be a good time for the 'mapping role' to be passed over!

Inspiration for Teachers

Surround yourself with things that inspire you. First thing on a Monday morning, you might just need them.

Revision Tips #3: Haiku Time

Haikus are an excellent revision tip for students. Their structure means it is easy to remember when you have missed a word and the rythmical nature means students pick them up quickly.

The Haiku structure is 5 syllables - 7 syllables - 5 syllables.

For example, here is my 'out of office haiku' for when I am on holiday:

Emails. Sit in my inbox (5)

unanswered. While I (7)

enjoy Easter eggs. (5)

Ask students to create these as a starter, plenary or for revision. Here are some of the best examples I have heard:

Sex Education

Condoms: check date, tear,

no nails, check right way around

roll down carefully

Sociology - theorists

functionalists are

parsons, murdock, charles murray,

think family good.

Business studies - ratio formulaes

working capital

gross profit, net profit and

solvency rating

Let your students' creativity run wild....

Revision Tips #2: Re-imagining exam locations

Revision tips are key during this term as students are taking their all-important external exams. So here's another off-beat tip to help learn keywords and concepts.

If possible, arrange for students to complete a lesson where they will sit their exam. It might be a gym, hall or a classroom. Even if there are no desks laid out, take the students to the space to have a look around.

Get them to sketch the room -- they should include as many details as possible. Think about windows, doors, lecterns, lights, pictures, and so on. Everything they draw should be in the room when the exam is taking place, so they should ignore anything temporary (e.g. trampolines in a gym!)

Next, ask students to suggest key concepts and relate them to items in the room. For example, in RE you could relate pictures around the room to the fourteen stations of christ. Or, in science, have different parts of a plant relate to different things around the room (e.g. the floor, ropes hanging from curtains, lights, etc.). The more creative the students can be and the more they meld the items with the concepts, then the more effective this tool becomes.

Back in the classroom get students to re-imagine their exam location and, again, recall the concepts along with the items in the hall or gym. In doing so this gets the concepts into the students minds but also, should they panic in the exam, they will have key reference points around the room to get them back on track.

Where did I get this idea from? My own high-school RE teacher Ms. Usher. It worked like a treat!

Website of the Week: Trouble Getting Students to Listen? Use Oddcast!

Struggling to get students quiet and listenting is a daily battle for most new teachers. You've tried counting down, you've threatened detentions, you've even wrote the work on the board to see if they will start without verbal prompting and yet you are still being ignored. What to do?

A colleague of mine noticed that students listened to recorded instruction -- even when it was of her own voice -- much better than they would listen to her in person. Using an old tape-recorder stolen from the Languages department she would tape instructions and play them on a cassette player. It worked! At least until the novely wore off....

Recently I came across Photoface Oddcasts. This software easily injects novelty into recorded instructions. Simply upload a photo of a face (I used mine in the trial but I expect celebrities would go down well with students), write what you would like it to say and 'send' to yourself. The result is a photo that 'speaks'.

In the example below I am reading Benjamin Zephaniah's poem "The British". This was used as a word-gap exercise. Students had a sheet with the poem on and had to write in the missing word from the recorded instructions. (Again, this idea is thanks to Catriona). Try it and see what you think!

Click here to see the video move

PS - Yes, it does make your face look scary - but that's half the fun!