A series of short posts, focusing on the challenges of teaching all students successfully, informed by lesson observations.
In my work, I often visit multiple lessons, one after the other. This affords the opportunity to compare the way teachers in the same school interact with their classes. Quite often I seen common strengths; I also observe variations. Some of the variations can be found in the way teachers hold the room, focus attention, reinforce expectations, notice students who distracted or not participating and create a sense that every student is involved and is seen.
I've often sat back to evaluate this. When a teacher seems to have a strong read on the room, holds attention and creates this fully involved, engaged atmosphere - how do they do it? On the flip side, when a teacher seems not to notice off-task behaviours, peer chat, or that students in the corners are not remotely involved.. what is it that they're not doing that they could be?
I think it comes down to this: the teachers that hold attention successfully, all around the room, make a point of checking and scanning the whole space at regular intervals, minute to minute. They take stock. And to do this, they give themselves a moment to do so; they take a beat. They pause. (I know - the blog title is a spoiler!)
Where teachers lose this sense of full engagement and fight against the off-task hubbub, they often don't allow themselves the time to notice... never mind the time to intervene. They move from one thing to another without stopping. They don't pause, scan, check and insist on expectations being met or to see who might be mentally checking out. They don't fully read the room and seem to just hope that students will follow the ideas or the instructions; they have to assume that things they say are being heard because they're not giving themselves time to check, all around the room.
A high frequency Walkthrus technique is Signal, Pause, Insist. It works when, after the signal for attention, the teacher stops to scan; they pause to survey, to take stock of the situation and then to use verbal or non-verbal cues to ensure all students are with them, focusing attention where it needs to be. Without a pause to scan.... the signal flows directly into teacher talk and students feel that the teacher doesn't fully mean it when they say 'eyes on me' or 'give me STAR'. It's just a thing they say that they don't mean.
Similarly when using Cold Call or Check for Understanding or any technique that embeds the idea of thinking time, you need to pause after asking .. you need to take a beat to scan and check... to see if people appear to be with you, acknowledging through their body language that they understand that they know they are included in circle of people who might be asked. This might then lead into longer thinking time but that 'pause and scan' moment comes first. It communicates 'yes I mean you, I mean everyone and I will notice and check'. Your pause is also the students' pause; what Bill Rogers would call their 'take-up time'. They need it as much as you do.
Pausing comes into play at other times. When explaining or telling a story.. the pauses are part of how you express ideas and allow people time to process them. During those pauses, teachers who do this well are silent.. they scan the room. They look towards or even physically go to the corners. The pause allows them to notice things.. to pick up on details of student activity that can't always be done at the same time as talking and giving an explanation, Students can detect this; if they are seen, they feel seen; monitored; included. They sense that what they do will be noticed. It's all part of creating a sense of belonging, reinforced minute to minute by the pausing and scanning.
`Perhaps, beyond the practicalities that pausing supports - buying time for scanning - it's the sense that a teacher who regularly pauses to take stock is in control; they project a measured steadiness that communicates confidence. And the opposite is true - teachers who rush from moment to moment, don't notice things because they don't give themselves the chance to. But they also communicate a sense of being slightly less than fully at ease; they are coping but not confidently in control of the lesson and all the interactions within it. A double hit.
It sounds obvious... but it really is a big variable, Those that pause with full assertive confidence and those that don't... it can make all the difference . Take time to notice, take time to scan the room. To scan the corners. Be steady, be measured. Take a breath. Take a beat. Take a moment. Pause.
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