No Volunteers - A Reflection from Research Ed St Louis

If you picture the average classroom or just remember the classroom of your childhood, you can imagine the interaction with teachers and students. The teacher asks a question. A few hands go up. The teacher calls on one of them. That students answers, and the class moves on. Almost all teachers have taught that way at some point. I did. Many still do. But, if there was one theme of ResearchEd this weekend in St. Louis, from Tom Sherrington's keynote to the way every session I attended was conducted, it was that we should not be answering questions from volunteers.

So, what's the problem with it?

There a few, actually.

1. Allows most to stop thinking - The most obvious reason not to call on a volunteer is that it limits participation. When everyone knows that you will call on one of the kids who is raising his hand, the kids who would rather not do any intellectual work that day just won't. "As long as someone raises their hand," they reason, "the teacher will be satisfied by the lack of silence.  I'll let Wyatt take care of that while I do other things." At that point, there are only two or three mentally active people in the room. Allowing that just because the other alternatives are uncomfortable is not fulfilling our professional duties.
2. Inhibits the Insight of Introverts - I didn't mean for that point to be alliterated, but here we are. Introverts are, by nature, unlikely to volunteer to speak out loud. But they will usually answer if asked directly. When using methods like cold calling, you will hear from them but in ways that make them deeply uncomfortable. I found that giving kids mini-whiteboards allowed the introvert to participate in a way that was not so intimidating for them. (For those of you saying they should just get out of their comfort zone, ask yourself if you ever require that from extroverts.) Introverts are usually thinking about the material more deeply than most, and if you only call on the volunteer, you will prevent the class from the benefit of those thoughts. You will also reinforce the culture narrative that the loudest ideas win. That's not helping anyone.
3. Misleads you in formative assessment - This is the first thing I noticed after I placed a mini-whiteboard on every desk. All of the sudden, misconceptions were revealed that I had not previously known were present. Once, I asked a question in a room with twenty-four students, and six of them had the same wrong answer. One fourth of my class had the same misconception, and I didn't know. The kid who raises his hand usually does so because he confident. If you only get correct answers from confident students, your formative assessment will produce misleading results at best.

There's more than one way to change this habit, but it requires energy and intention. Otherwise, it is so easy to fall back into the trap of calling on volunteers. I had two methods - popsicle sticks and mini-whiteboards. These may not be appropriate for every setting, and there are counterarguments to their use (see Adam Boxer's Twitter feed where he regularly hates on "lolly-sticks"), but I'll give you my reasons for using them.

• Popsicle Sticks - Popsicle sticks were the least expensive and least tech driven method I could find for randomizing participation and making sure I included everyone. Many opponents to this method (including Adam) would advocate for cold-calling instead as it is a more thoughtful way of selecting each student. I agree, but a lot depends on the culture of your school. In many places, parents and students might view cold calling as the teacher targeting a student. As a teacher, I recognize my own bias and ability to slip into calling on the kids I'm most comfortable with. When the kids see you are pulling names at random from a cup, they are more likely to "blame the cup" than me. (Note: I was a bit sneaky, pulling about three sticks up at a time and choosing more selectively from that grouping, but the kids didn't see that.) I'm not saying it is for everyone, but in my particular context, it worked well.
• Mini-whiteboards - This is the change I made after finding the science of learning that I most wish I had made earlier. I had a classroom set of whiteboards in my room, but I pulled them out on review days. Putting one on every desk allowed me to engage in retrieval, formative assessment, and diffuse mode more than any tool I ever used (and the only drawback was that I went through a lot of markers). Mini-whiteboards are adaptable, can be used for many question types, and can be employed on the fly if they are already on their desks. Once I found the power of getting an answer from every single student, it became my go to method. They might not work for everyone. If you have students who will whack each other over the head with them, they may not be for you. But, if you don't have a strong reason not to use them, I couldn't recommend them more highly.

Other methods include digital response boards, clickers, cold-calling, thumbs up/down, multiple choice cards, give me five, choral response, and on and on and on. There is no one right way to do it. Find the one that works for you, gives you the most participation at the least cost to your time. 

But, stop making calling on a volunteer your default.