Imagine this scenario: You, the teacher, have spent hours developing a lesson that includes great, thought provoking questions. You are excited to get students involved in a class discussion. You go to execute said questions with your first class. You ask the first question. One student volunteers an answer. You ask the second question. The same student raises her hand. You say, "Come on, I know Daniella isn't the only one who has an answer to this question..." Crickets ensue. You call on another student, who responds with, "I don't know." You let Daniella answer again. Sound any kind of familiar? I know I've had situations like this as an English teacher. So how do you get to that level of engagement where you can have a deep, meaningful conversation where all of your students participate? There are two instructional strategies that work very well together to achieve this: Think Pair Share and the Cold Call. In Think Pair Share, students have individual time to think about a problem, then work with a partner (or group) to solve it. Then students share out with the class. Letting them think gives that wait time students need to formulate an answer, and letting them work with a partner gives them the opportunity to make sure they have the best, most well thought out answer. When you are ready to have students share out their answers, the Cold Call comes in. You may be familiar with Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion (I know many teachers in our building use the STAR or SLANT technique). Lemov's Cold Call is when teachers "call on students regardless of whether they've raised their hands" (249). Lemov argues that this technique can truly transform a classroom. The idea is to avoid students checking out. In the scenario above, the moment Daniella raised her hand, or even when the teacher asked for someone to raise their hand and answer, most of the class checked out. There is no reason for them to think about the answer, because they do not have to participate. Cold Calling helps prevent this. If students know that there is always a possibility of the teacher calling on them, they have to be bring their A-game. Lemov gives four strategies to make Cold Calling effective: 1. Make sure it's predictable. If you use it once in a blue moon, it won't work. In fact, students may feel ambushed and become less likely to participate than before. If you have a positive classroom culture where students feel secure and you implement Cold Calling regularly, students will know it is a part of the routine. 2. Make it systematic. The best Cold Call is random. I used good old fashioned popsicle sticks in my classroom, but a great digital tool to keep Cold Calls random is the Random Name Generator on Super Teacher Tools. Just put in your rosters and the program randomly selects students with the click of a button! 3. Make sure it's positive. Cold Calling is inherently positive. You want students to be right, not wrong. It's not a good idea use Cold Calling to target students who may not be paying attention. This can call negative attention to the student, who most likely doesn't know the answer. You want students to feel comfortable with Cold Calling. There are a multitude of ways to make this happen, but I think using the Think Pair Share technique is a great way to give students a leg up with their answers. And again, classroom culture is SO important. If a student thinks everyone will think they are "dumb" if they don't know the answer, they won't want to participate. If they know it's ok to make mistakes and learn from them (Growth Mindset!) then they won't be as timid about participating. 4. Unbundle it. It's better to unbundle a larger question into several smaller questions, or to scaffold the level of questioning, so that you can Cold Call multiple students and increase engagement overall. I tried to find a good YouTube video that showed Cold Calling in action, but all the ones I found were lacking wait time for the whole class. For example, the teacher would ask, "What is the square root of 4, Jennifer?" Yes, you've randomly called on Jennifer, but now the other students don't have a reason to work through the problem for themselves. Instead, asking, "What is the square root of 4?" providing wait time, and then calling on Jennifer would provide more engagement for all students. I encourage you to try Think Pair Share with the Cold Call in your classroom if you aren't already doing it. I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised at the level of engagement you achieve! Works Cited
Lemov, Doug. Teach Like a Champion 2.0. Jossey-Bass, 2015. Photo from Pixabay
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