The first time I was observed teaching, the feedback I received was generally positive, but there was one constructive criticism that stuck with me. Increase the amount of time you wait after asking a question. I'd like to say that I was just nervous about being observed, but that isn't true. I was uncomfortable with silence. Most people are, and young teachers, in particular, feel like there should be no down moments in their classes. When people talk about wait time, it is usually framed as being helpful to our students with slow thinking, learning disabilities, or auditory processing issues. But, in truth, all students would benefit from a longer wait time, and it is likely you don't wait long enough.
Fortunately, there is research that can help inform our practice in this area. First, let's look at where most of us are. Teachers overestimate their wait time. If you ask them, they how long they wait for an answer after asking questions, they will give an answer more than twice as long as it actually is when measured. It's not because we are dishonest; it is because people have a poor internal sense of time (even more so since the invention of the smartphone). When measured, the average time between a teacher asking a question and their next move (calling on someone, rewording it, or giving the answer themselves) is between 0.7 and 1.5 seconds. That's a small amount of time, but like other averages, it might be less helpful to know than what is most common (finally learning about mode in math is paying off). The most common wait time is 0.2 seconds. Open an online stopwatch right now and measure it; that's nothing. In fact, it is only 0.05 seconds longer than Usain Bolt's reaction time between the firing of a starting pistol and coming off the blocks! Can we really expect our students to process the meaning of a question and think long enough to come up with a meaningful answer in less time than the world's fastest man?
So, we know where we are is too short. What does the research say about what our wait time should be? Well, there isn't a magic number of seconds. There are just too many variables (age of students, the complexity of the expected answer, new content you are asking them to speculate about or recall of previously learned information, even time of day) to say that there is one right amount of time. Researchers did find that the tipping point on getting better answers was three seconds and that after five seconds, students started filling the silence with irrelevant things. So it, seems that 3-5 seconds is a reasonably good range. I already said that we have a poor internal sense of time, so we can't just hope to get it right. The advice my observer gave me all those years ago was to five in my head. When we count, we usually do it at slightly less than 1s per digit, so that would ensure I landed somewhere around 3 seconds. I think that is still good advice, but it prevents you from processing what else is happening in the room, so we may want to do something more "feely" than "thinky." We may want to wait until the silence feels a little awkward and then let it sit just a bit longer. It'll take some practice, but if students start talking about other things just to fill the science, you'll know that's a little too long. If you practice, you can train yourself to stand the awkwardness longer than they can.
One thing I had never thought about until a few weeks ago when I was listening to the podcast Tips for Teachers with Craig Barton was a different kind of wait time. He was discussing the amount of time you might wait after a student answers a question. While you might not want to wait 5 seconds after that (as far as I know there is no research on this period), waiting a beat before affirming or correcting that answer will give other students time to process whether or not they agree with that answer. You might even ask another student if they agree or if they can elaborate on that answer. I haven't played with this yet, but I look forward to experimenting with it in the next few weeks.
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