Notes

Treating All Students Equitably WITH REGARD TO Teacher Attention
It stands to reason that treating all students equitably regarding teacher attention and behavior would raise the academic achievement of the students in general and improve classroom climate; this reasoning is supported by way of a plethora of research. The study also confirms a commonly held view that male students have more attention than female students, whatever the teacher's gender. Racial/ethnic attributes in students are also associated with differentiated teacher expectations. To summarize this research in broad strokes, the Pygmalion effect is widespread and, ironically, is communicated to students with techniques that would otherwise be effective teaching practices, if only carried out equity.

The following descriptions of teaching practices will undoubtedly be couched in a normal lecture-discussion model of teaching. This will not mean that I present this practice being the most effective, but I do believe that it is a popular mode of instruction. Secondly, these practices are not limited to lecture-discussion; they are widely used in more inquiry and experientially based instruction.

Equal Distribution of Response Opportunities. Simply put, this is directing questions toward all students, not just the people who volunteer or those who the professor feels preferred in querying. It is my observation that teachers at all levels have a knee-jerk a reaction to call on students who raises his / her hand. This is the habit that can be un-learned, in fact it is a habit one pays to handle with the students. I generally use the initial meeting of a course with a comment that goes something similar to this: "I would like to connect to everyone in this class, not just those who are probably the most eager. Because of this I will be calling on everyone, not just those who increase your hands or volunteer comments. I promise not to attempt to embarrass you or put you down if I call on you and you also are reluctant to respond. However, I reserve the proper to help you respond by following through to my initial question with some leading comments. You'll find my behavior a little unusual, but you'll get accustomed to it.

Delving, Probing, and Correcting. Certainly most of us desire to be adroit enough to check out up a question that confounds our students with one that is simpler to react to, or, if a student has responded and we want them to expand upon their idea, we hope to utilize Socratic questioning or something closely akin. Sometimes students response is just off the mark, and we have to gently allow student know that she or he is certainly going down a fruitless direction. However, as the research cited earlier has established, we have been not equitable in these practices. It's been my observation in working with other teachers and analyzing my own teaching that this is particularly true whenever a teacher is dealing with a student perceived as less able. For a number of reasons, we believe that we do not desire to embarrass the student involved, but if this is a more able student, we are more susceptible to pursue our questioning or correct a response. To be equitable, a teacher needs to be aware of this tendency and monitor his / her behavior. This will not mean that all initial questions and therefore their subsequent follow-ups are equally suited for all our students. read more might be wise to address simpler questions to less able students, even though issue of gender must have nothing to do with the difficulty of the question. Which does not imply that higher-level questions should be reserved for the students we perceive as the brightest.

Higher-level Questioning. I am going to not discuss the issue of higher-level questioning at length, but I'll define higher-level questioning as those inquiries which ask the student to exceed factual information that he/she has (or must have) read, seen, heard, or whatever as part of the preparation for a given class session. For example, a brief history teacher might ask his students, "Why did public opinion react so strongly to the Watergate cover-up?" This might be a lower-level question if an appropriate response were to be found in the assigned reading. However, were the same question to be asked and the answer had to be pieced together from several sections of the reading and/or other sources of information and requiring the students' judgment, it will be a higher-level question. I propose that we direct higher-level questions, especially open-ended ones in which a variety of responses might have some validity, to students we perceive as less able. After the student's initial response, one might probe and delve in a manner that asked the student to compare his or her response with the public's reaction to Watergate. It really is obvious that one should be careful never to be too apparent in the differing degrees of difficulty directed at students of differing abilities lest the students see through this strategy.

Latency. Latency, or "wait time" since it is also known is merely this: a far more than "normal" pause between exchanges. The more common kind of latency (type one) occurs whenever a teacher asks a question and chooses a respondent. While research varies concerning the exact amount of time a teacher should use, we realize that most teachers practice very little latency, typically significantly less than or about one second. I advocate a teacher should wait at the very least three seconds when asking a question, especially a higher level question. Initially, this is very difficult. As a prompt for latency, I identify part of the physical landscape, a window or perhaps a clock if such is positioned in the back of the classroom. WHEN I ask a question I look to this feature and focus my attention on it. While that is initially disconcerting to my students who expect me to be scanning their ranks, it is effective in reminding me to apply latency. It also serves to remind me to be equitable in my selection of respondents as well as lessening my focus on the obvious volunteers, students who've raised their hands or verbalized a reply.

The second kind of latency involves the pause in discussion after a student has responded. That is known as "type two" latency. If an instructor gets in the habit of letting a student's comments hang in the air for two or three seconds, this sends a signal to all the students that this response will probably be worth reflecting upon and evaluating. It's been my observation that, when type two latency can be used, students are more attentive to their peers' ideas as the focus is taken away from the instructor. Again, this seems slightly bizarre when one first begins to practice it, nonetheless it does develop a more thoughtful and honoring classroom climate. It also helps me in formulating my reaction to student input.

Encouragement. The initial program uses the term "praise" in lieu of my terminology, but I favor "encouragement" because it connotes a support of student ideas and work, rather than a Pavlovian reward of same. We have been more curt in our encouragement of student responses, in accordance with a few of the research. We are more prone to simply mumble "uh huh" whenever a student of perceived lesser ability responds in an acceptable fashion, however when among "favorites" responds in an identical fashion we are more prone to be more emphatic, e.g. "You got it!" However, I believe that a still better practice is that of precise encouragement, another practice to be delineated.

Precise Encouragement. Precise encouragement works well since it suggests why or how the student response has merit. In addition, it fits neatly within the practice of delving and probing. The instructor, if using precise encouragement, might respond in this fashion (after using a few seconds of type two latency needless to say), "I think there is a real good point in distinguishing between arenas of behavior predicated on their "publicness." However, can we explain the whole of the difference based only with this distinction?" If the student seemed perplexed, one might delve by saying, "Aside from the issue of publicness, what other differing circumstances might factor in here?"

Proximity. It seems obvious that students that are located nearer the instructor will be more involved in the discussion and linked to the instructor than students more distantly located. get more info use randomly assigned groups quite often, and this leads students to be grouped about the classroom in varying patterns. After group work, the groups report out on their discussion. Because their seating arrangements have been varied, this allows different students to be proximus if you ask me on different days, even if I do get swept up in the heart of the area. Also, I think it is helpful to stand on the opposite side of the area from the group reporting out. This causes the group to talk with the whole room, not only me, and is more likely to encourage student to student discussion across groups. It's been my observation that I really do tend to gravitate to front center of the room during sessions without group work; by catching myself at this, I move about more freely.

What exactly constitutes proximity? Proximity is operationally defined at being within three feet or arm's amount of a student. I favor to extend this range to about five or six feet, and I imagine this distance to function as space that would allow the student and I to the touch hands, were we to extend an arm to one another. This seems a far more appropriate distance for the collegiate classroom where we spend less time working with our students on projects and writing assignments in-class and spend more time talking with our students about such projects, assignments, and ideas central to the course we have been teaching.

Individual Help. If you asked most K-12 teachers, they might tell you that the large most enough time they spend assisting students with seatwork and so on is devoted to their less able students. It's been my observation that there are obviously needy students who might capture their teacher's attention, but if the student isn't demonstrably needy, the teacher tends to direct his focus on either needy students or students the teacher perceives to be particularly engaged in the task accessible. While opportunities for individual helping probably exist to a smaller degree at the collegiate level (labs as an exception), you may still find occasions when college instructors, especially those of a constructivist orientation, have students involved in individual or group projects while in class. If their tendency is equivalent to K-12 teachers, they are likely not be equitable in their attention without assistance. I also believe that the higher up students go in their educational careers, the not as likely they're to actively demonstrate confusion and neediness of the instructor's attention. Thus, understanding how to be equitable in individual helping is of great importance to collegiate instructors.

Attentive Listening. Attentive listening, to define it operationally, is the usage of ones body to show that certain is attending to a student's comments, questions, or concerns. It is all too easy for an instructor, his head swimming with the flow of conversation and his instructional objectives, to devote significantly less than his full focus on a student, despite the fact that the instructor wants only an interactive, conversational classroom climate. It is also human nature to have a tendency to devote more of this sort of focus on students one perceives to be particularly able. Much like the rest of the practices I have described, the goal of the effective and equitable instructor is usually to be in keeping with active listening.

Courtesy and Personal Interest. Some of us are very susceptible to share personal comments and conversations with students while others of us have a more aloof stance. The main element here, as earlier, is usually to be equitable in this regard: either spread such attention around to all the students in a class on an equally occasional basis, or avoid it altogether. Obviously, these practices could be counter-productive during actual instructional time, but I find such relationship-building worthwhile if completed in the minutes before or after the actual session. The key is to find something to touch upon with all students, or, if students initiate such conversations, never to spend a lot of time being chatted up by a minority of the class.

Jeff C. Palmer is really a teacher, success coach, trainer, Certified Master of Web Copywriting and founder of https://Ebookschoice.com. Jeff is a prolific writer, Senior Research Associate and Infopreneur having written many eBooks, articles and special reports.
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