Another method to increase inclusivity in lectures is termed wait time. Wait time is characterized by short pauses (10-30 seconds) when asking students to respond to questions or similar prompts given by the instructor. Too often, lecture professors cover material too quickly or provide only a few seconds for students to respond to questions (Rowe 1980).
The short period for student responses leads to students that either fail to even consider the question or give short, incorrect responses just to have the instructor go to the next student. In some situations, instructors pose questions and then answer their own question without eliciting student responses. In all these situations, the instructor has failed to give students adequate time to think about the question, has failed to provide insight into the process of understanding the materials, and has taught the students that answering the questions is optional for most of the class.
By increasing the amount of time given after proposing a question to a class, students not only have time to think about the question and possible answers, but also to form more complex answers while also encouraging more of the class to actively think about the question and generate answers. With wait times greater than 5 seconds, student responses to questions showed increased speculative thinking, increased use of evidence or inference in responses, increased student participation (by four-fold), and reduced non-response (“I don’t know”) answers (Rowe 1980).
Although incorporating wait time can be uncomfortable (10 seconds can seem like an eternity) for the instructor, it can greatly increase student understanding of the topic and sets a precedence for needing time to answer student’s questions (if a student asks a question and the instructor does not know the answer immediately, they can pause and use 10 seconds to think prior to responding or ask the student for more information or clarification). Both wait time and clarifying questions, give the instructor more time to response to a student’s question and demonstrate that it is good to think about questions before responding.
Rowe, M. B. (1980). Pausing Principles and their effects on Reasoning in Science. New Directions for Community Colleges, 31:27-34.
This page was authored by Michele Larson and last updated May 24, 2022
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