Waiting out students to foster engagement in the classroom: Opinion

Instructors must actively foster student engagement in the classroom if they want students to be active participants, writes Dan Sarofian-Butin. Sarofian-Butin argues that students often approach postsecondary learning passively and avoid interacting with the professor by holding a “collective silence” whenever a question is posed. Instructors may respond by answering their own questions and resorting to lecturing rather than engagement, but Sarofian-Butin encourages “waiting out” the students by letting silence build until students are forced to engage. The author writes that this technique consistently leads to students who respond to questions, engage with each other, ask questions in front of the class, and understand that learning is a process requiring engagement. Inside Higher Ed (Acct. Req.) Note: Archived stories may contain dead links or be missing source links.