Notes

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

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

Equal Distribution of Response Opportunities. Simply put, that is directing questions toward all students, not just the ones who volunteer or those who the professor feels most comfortable in querying. logic questions is my observation that teachers at all levels have a knee-jerk reaction to call on students who raises his or her hand. That is a habit that can be un-learned, and it is a habit one is wise to address with the students. I generally use the initial meeting of a course with a comment that goes something similar to this: "I wish to connect to everyone in this class, not just those who are the most eager. Therefore 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 easily call on you and you are reluctant to respond. However, I reserve the right to help you respond by following up on my initial question with some leading comments. You'll find my behavior just a little unusual, but you'll get used to it.

Delving, Probing, and Correcting. Certainly most of us hope to be adroit enough to check out up a question that confounds our students with one that is simpler to respond to, or, in case a student has responded and we wish them to expand upon their idea, we hope to use Socratic questioning or something closely akin. Sometimes a student response is merely off the mark, and we need to gently let the student know that they is going down a fruitless direction. However, as the research cited earlier has generated, we are not equitable in these practices. It has been my observation in dealing with other teachers and analyzing my very own teaching that this is specially true whenever a teacher is working with a student regarded as less able. For several reasons, we believe that we do not desire to embarrass the student involved, but if it is a more able student, we have been more prone to pursue our questioning or correct a response. To be equitable, a teacher should be aware of this tendency and monitor their behavior. This does not imply that all initial questions and therefore their subsequent follow-ups are equally fitted to all our students. One would be wise to address simpler questions to less able students, even though issue of gender should have nothing in connection with the difficulty of the question. Which does not mean that higher-level questions should be reserved for the students we perceive as the brightest.

Higher-level Questioning. I will not discuss the problem of higher level questioning in detail, but I will define higher-level questioning as those inquiries which ask the student to go beyond factual information that he/she has (or should have) read, seen, heard, or whatever as part of the preparation for a given class session. For instance, 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 found in the assigned reading. However, were exactly the same question to be asked and the solution needed to be pieced together from several parts of the reading and/or other sources of information and requiring the students' judgment, it might be a higher-level question. I propose that we direct higher-level questions, especially open-ended ones in which a variety of responses can have some validity, to students we perceive as less able. After the student's initial response, one might probe and delve in a fashion that asked the student to compare his / her response with the public's reaction to Watergate. It is obvious that one should be careful never to be too apparent in the differing levels of difficulty directed at students of differing abilities lest the students look out of this strategy.

Latency. Latency, or "wait time" as it is also known is merely this: a more than "normal" pause between exchanges. The more prevalent kind of latency (type one) occurs when a teacher asks a question and chooses a respondent. While research varies concerning the exact length of time a teacher should use, we realize that most teachers practice hardly any latency, typically less than or around 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 a clock if such is put in the back of the classroom. After 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 practice latency. In addition, it serves to remind me to be equitable in my own selection of respondents together with lessening my focus on the obvious volunteers, students who've raised their hands or verbalized a response.

The second kind of latency involves the pause in discussion after a student has responded. This 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 sign to all the students that response is worth reflecting upon and evaluating. It has been my observation that, when type two latency is used, students are more mindful of their peers' ideas because the focus is recinded from the instructor. Again, this seems slightly bizarre when one first begins to apply it, nonetheless it does create a more thoughtful and honoring classroom climate. It also helps me in formulating my reaction to student input.

Encouragement. The original program uses the term "praise" in lieu of my terminology, but I favor "encouragement" since it connotes a support of student ideas and work, rather than a Pavlovian reward of same. We are more curt in our encouragement of student responses, in accordance with a few of the research. We have been more susceptible to simply mumble "uh huh" when a student of perceived lesser ability responds within an acceptable fashion, however when among "favorites" responds in an identical fashion we are more likely to be more emphatic, e.g. "You have it!" However, I really believe 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 of course), "I believe you've got a real good point in distinguishing between arenas of behavior based on their "publicness." However, can we explain the whole of this difference based only on this distinction?" If the student seemed perplexed, one might delve by saying, "Besides the issue of publicness, what other differing circumstances might element in here?"

Proximity. It seems obvious that students which are located nearer the instructor will be more mixed up in discussion and linked to the instructor than students more distantly located. I also use randomly assigned groups quite often, which 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 already been varied, this enables different students to be proximus if you ask me on different days, even if I do get caught up in the center of the area. Also, I think it is beneficial to stand on the contrary side of the area from the group reporting out. This causes the group to speak to the whole room, not just me, and is more prone 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 as of this, I move about more freely.

Just what constitutes proximity? Proximity is operationally defined at being within three feet or arm's length of a student. I favor to extend this range to about five or six feet, and I imagine this distance to be the space that would allow the student and I to touch hands, were we to increase an arm to each other. This seems a far more appropriate distance for the collegiate classroom where we spend less time dealing with our students on projects and writing assignments in-class and spend more time talking with this students about such projects, assignments, and ideas central to the course we are teaching.

Individual Help. If you asked most K-12 teachers, they might tell you that the large majority of enough time they spend assisting students with seatwork and so forth is specialized in their less able students. It has been my observation there are obviously needy students who might capture their teacher's attention, but if the student is not demonstrably needy, the teacher will direct his focus on either needy students or students the teacher perceives to be particularly engaged in the task at hand. While opportunities for individual helping probably exist to a lesser degree at the collegiate level (labs as an exception), there are still occasions when college instructors, especially those of a constructivist orientation, have students involved with individual or group projects during class. If their tendency is the same as K-12 teachers, they are likely not be equitable within 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, may be the usage of ones body to demonstrate that one is attending to a student's comments, questions, or concerns. It really is all too possible for an instructor, his head swimming with the flow of conversation and his instructional objectives, to devote less than his full focus on a student, even though the instructor wants nothing more than an interactive, conversational classroom climate. Additionally it is human nature to have a tendency to devote more of the sort of focus on students one perceives as being particularly able. As with the rest of the practices I've described, the purpose of the effective and equitable instructor is to be consistent with active listening.

Courtesy and Personal Interest. Some of us are very susceptible to share personal comments and conversations with students while some of us have a more aloof stance. The main element here, as earlier, is 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 carried out in the minutes before or following the actual session. The main element is to consider something to touch upon with all students, or, if students initiate such conversations, never to spend a lot of time being chatted up by way of a minority of the class.

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