There are two schools of thought when it comes to calling on students in class. One says to choose students randomly, perhaps by drawing popsicle sticks with their names on them out of a bucket. The other says to choose only those students who volunteer, as calling on a student who doesn't know the answer can be stressful to that student.
You can probably guess which method I choose. Go ahead, guess!
If you guessed the first method, you're right! How can you know if a student understands the material if you don't do a "check for understanding"? Yes, there are other ways to do a check for understanding, but calling on a student randomly is the quickest and most efficient. I usually tell students I'm going to choose names, so they should chat with the person next to them for a moment to make sure they understand the question and answer before I choose. That method eliminates most of the objections to the random method.
What if we made a game out of it, though? You're the winner! You get to answer the question! Sure, I'd still do the "chat before I call on you" technique, but no one can say that this method isn't fair or random, especially since students can see my screen whether we're in class or online.
I think I'll add this to my teaching repertoire.
5 comments:
There are other methods to call on every student at least once, not necessarily randomly: alphabetically, or in order by row/column (in the beforetimes when we had desks with students in them). Or you could intentionally call on the ones who never volunteer.
In my class, each seat has a number. I will say "Hey Siri, pick a number between 1 and X" and Siri will pick a number. It shows pure randomness and that I am not just picking on a kid (even though Siri did pick the same number 4 out of 5 times one time). Plus it shows that the same kid could be called on again so be prepared.
Plus only picking on volunteers shows that the lazy students who didn't do the work can skate by while we go over the answers.
I also gauge the difficulty of the question to the student. If I'm just asking for a familiar next step, I call on a weak student. I want a fairly obvious but not stated observation, mid-tier student. I rarely call on top students; I give them their attention after they've ripped through the assignment by setting a very challenging extension.
Realist, I've done that, as well. Give some of the strugglers an "ego boost" question.
I think it's a good idea, since it motivates kids to prepare ahead of time for class. I remember once, in high school English class, when we were assigned sentences to diagram. The number of items on the assignment matched the number of students, so I could see where this was going. Sure enough, he sent us to the board to diagram them. Sure enough, he meted them out by seat number. I was relieved to discover that I would get sentence #12. There was one particularly beastly sentence that was about a paragraph long on that assignment. I skipped that one, but did all the rest. That one was #14.
So the teacher goes along assigning each student a sentence until he gets to me ... and then he skips right over me and assigns #12 to the kid behind me, #13 to the girl behind him, and then jumps back to me and dumps #14 in my lap. I was horrified, but I gave it my best shot. I only managed to get part way through the monster. The rest of the class was allowed to chime in to help out. Nobody did. It was awkward, but I never left any assignment unfinished after that.
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