No Big Deal: Providing a Classroom Environment Where It’s Safe to Participate

July 12th, 2010 By: Diane Trim in Articles, School Climate, Teachers' Corner

I remember sitting in my high school chemistry class and praying that the teacher wouldn’t call on me. I made no eye contact, sunk low in my seat, and tried to hide behind my long hair. It worked pretty well. The times that the teacher did call on me, I was so hopelessly lost that I just mumbled some answer. He learned not to ask me questions and I learned how to master that queasy feeling in my gut. Chemistry? I didn’t learn very much of that at all.

As a teacher, I know better. If I have a student who’s hiding from me and unwilling to answer a question, I have a problem. That’s not a kid who’s learning; that’s a kid who’s miserable for an hour each day.

The obvious reason that these kids aren’t jumping out of their seats and waving their hands to answer a question is that they don’t know the material. Not only are they lost, but they’re also struggling to save face in front of their peers. No one wants to answer a question incorrectly and risk looking foolish. I’m not looking for 100% perfection when I ask questions. I’m looking for thought and for students to learn the material. It’s not a test or a quiz. It’s not a gotcha game. It’s a learning opportunity.

Here’s what I do to increase class participation and decrease worry about wrong answers:

1. Think time. This one’s the most obvious and yet it’s hard to wait for a student response to a question when we think the answer is so clear. Be patient. Mentally sing the ABCs while watching students’ expressions. When it looks like most of the kids have caught on, call on a student.
2. Write it out. Ashley was a bright student in one of my classes. She did well on every test, but if I asked her a question in class, she’d get a stunned look on her face. I could almost watch the information leaking out of her head. Invite students to take a piece of scrap paper and write down their answers to the question. That way, they’ll still remember the answer after the shock of being called on wears off. This method is best used for questions designed for critical thinking, not fact-based review questions.
3. Think/pair/share. Again, this isn’t a new technique, but it’s effective and the students like it because they can chat with their neighbors and still be on task. The teacher asks a question, gives some think time, asks students to discuss their answers with their neighbors, sets the timer for a minute and lets ’em talk. When the time’s up, the teacher asks any student for a response. That student can choose to share her own answer, her partner’s answer, or an answer the two developed together. Think/pair/share takes the pressure off the individual to be right and focuses the attention on ideas instead.
4. No big deal. Good try. That’s cool. These are easy words to take the sting out of a wrong answer. Acknowledge that the answer was incorrect, but smile at the student and shrug it off. Hey, wrong answers happen to us all. No big deal.
5. How about an assist? Sometimes a student is right on the cusp of giving a correct answer. You can see the wheels clicking in his brain, but he hasn’t quite gotten there yet. I circulate around my classroom, so if a student is struggling with an answer, I might stage whisper a hint to her. Of course, the other students know I’m giving a hint, but they also know it’s O.K. to do so. The hint is a safety net for them and it communicates to students that I’m not going to put them on the spot and embarrass them. Phone a friend or poll the class are also effective options for the student to use and they use the class in a way that offers help, not criticism. This is an opportunity to learn and learning from others is just fine.
6. Can someone expand on that? Can anyone translate? Jake was a student who had trouble articulating his thoughts. I knew that he had the words in his mind, but maybe half of them surfaced in his response. That’s the time I asked for volunteers to expand on Jake’s answer. Jake wasn’t wrong; he just wasn’t complete enough. That’s when I’d ask for someone to expand on Jake’s answer. He gave us a good start; let’s have someone give us a good finish.Breanna was just the opposite of Jake. She had so many thoughts in her head that her answers were often a jumble. When she said an answer that might have been right, but I wasn’t sure, I asked my class for a volunteer to translate. Maybe a student understood what I had not. “Translating” teen into adult helps students who might not be eloquent still participate and receive recognition for their ideas.
7.  Use your resources. Question-and-answer time is not quiz or test time. It’s about learning. Looking up facts in the textbook and referring to class notes is a habit I’d like to encourage. If reading a sentence from the book takes the pressure off a student, I’m fine with that.
8. I’ll come back to you. Despite my best efforts to make the classroom a safe place to give an answer, a student might ask for a pass on a question. I say, “No big deal. I’ll come back to you.” Giving a student a little extra time might give her the confidence she needs to answer the question, feel successful, and learn.
9. Circulate, observe, and call out good work. Opportunities for participation aren’t limited to a question-and-answer activity. Participation can happen even during work time. I circulate among my students while they work to monitor their progress, to redirect off-task behavior, and to answer student questions. Often, I’ll stop by a student’s desk and ask permission to see her work. Maybe the class is writing essays and Shanna has a really good introduction. It’s so good that I hand her an overhead transparency and a marker and ask her to copy her intro onto the transparency to share with the class. Shanna’s a quiet girl who doesn’t like to be called on, but she writes well and glows when I hand her the marker and transparency. When the students are working on an assignment, I might read out a really interesting answer from a student’s work-in-progress and take suggestions from the crowd about whether they would add or subtract anything from the response.
10. Never use questions as a punishment. Never use sarcasm. Nothing shuts a student down quicker than punitive questioning and a smart remark. The point of class participation is to learn, not to discipline students for not paying attention or to show the class how clever your comebacks can be. You’ll see students stop raising their hands to answer questions, no matter how many participation points you offer. You can almost watch the learning curve take a nose dive for the worse.

What about you? Do you have any ways to encourage student participation in class? How do you create an environment in your classroom where students feel it’s safe to offer an answer or an opinion?