How you ask students to answer a question is often as important as the question you ask. If you don’t get everyone to answer, if you don’t cause everyone to think deeply about the answer, even the best question will only be so useful. So great teaching relies on clarity about Means of Participation–that’s what…

My colleague Bradley Busch and his colleagues at Inner Drive recently posted this outstanding illustration of the way combining Cold Call with Wait Time and “timing the name”–that is, not identifying whom you are calling on until after the question is asked and students have had time to think–can boost the amount of student thinking. (Bradley’s…

Up here at TLAC Towers, Show Call is one of our very favorite techniques. Think of it as a visual Cold Call with a whole lot of additional benefits. In a Show Call you present a piece of student work, chosen at your discretion and regardless of who volunteers, to look at and study as a…