Keep Your Students On The Hook: Subject Them To Random Choice

When you call on a student who has raised her hand to answer your question, you might be signalling to other students that they don't need to think when you ask questions in class.

Why? When we ask a question in class, we want all our students to think about an answer.  But if we routinely call on students who volunteer information, then other students quickly learn that they can let their more eager peers do the thinking for them.  They just have to wait it out.  And just 'cold-calling' kids out of the blue may catch a few kids who weren't thinking, but it won't necessarily make your whole class think.

But we can up the stakes for the whole class by deliberately calling on students randomly.  And there's a Notebook tool that does the grunt work for us:  it's called the Random Word Chooser.

You can find it by searching in the Notebook gallery -- or you can download a Notebook file that's already set up here.  This file has a separate page for each of your classes; all you need to do is add your student names).  You can keep it on your desktop, and just open it whenever you want to call on students randomly -- your SMART Board doesn't even have to be connected to use this tool.

It's important to alert students that you'll call on them at random first, then ask the question, the allow some excruciating seconds to pass for wait-time -- to let them sweat and think, and then, and only then, press the button for the randomizer.

Of course this strategy works with index cards or popsicle sticks, too -- but the digital tool saves you the need to store sets for each class, and there's something compelling about the noise and flash of the Notebook activity -- try it: it will definitely add that adrenaline rush of anticipation to your class.  Students also feel viscerally that it really is random.  (Though it does prevent you from 'randomly' selecting the student you want to catch.  Not that I'd ever do that...)

Don't let your students off the hook.  We want to land all of them.

Got another idea about how to keep kids engaged for or by your questions?