Question: Does teachers’
wait- time before students answer questions affect achievement?
Answer/Quote: “One
reflection of teacher expectations is wait- time, the length of time a teacher
waits for a child to begin responding to a question. Teacher expectations
sometimes lead teachers to behave differently toward different groups of
students. For example, teachers tend to give more wait- time to high achievers.
This is significant, because giving more wait time has been found actually to
produce higher achievement.”
Quote: “During math
instruction, American teachers give more wait-time to boys than to girls,
according to a recent study published in The
Journal of Educational Research (May/June 1983). Done year after year, this difference in wait-time could have
a cumulative effect on boys’ and girls’ math performance, perhaps being one
reason girls gradually withdraw from math.”
Quote: “One way to
counter this tendency is for teachers to mentally count off the seconds of
wait-time, as by silently counting ‘A thousand and one, a thousand and two,….’
And so on. Try it—you may be surprised how few seconds of wait-time you give
your students, and to whom you give the most or the least.”
Comment: One of those things you never think of. This
research opened my eyes. RayS.
Title:
“Wait for an Answer.” The Reading Teacher
(May 1984), 908.
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