Wait time is performed by an SI Leader when they give a deliberate pause at strategic moments during their sessions with students. This time provides the students with space to process the information, interpret questions, consider their own understanding, ask follow-up questions, and formulate thoughtful responses.

Top Four Benefits of Wait Time: 

1. The length and correctness of student responses is likely to increase. 

2.    The number of failures to respond (“I don’t know”) is likely to decrease. 

3. The number of students who volunteer to answer is likely to increase.

4.    The use of evidence in answers is likely to increase.

When we give students what they need (thinking time), the effectiveness of their learning increases. No one likes feeling rushed. And no one, especially, likes being put “on the spot” in front of their peers. Let’s use wait time to give students the space to formulate and articulate thoughtful answers to questions.  

Wait time came be employed in a variety of ways throughout the course of your SI sessions. Variations of wait time include:

• Waiting after posing a question– Research shows that after asking a question, most instructors only wait less than 2 seconds for a student to respond. While it may feel like 5 minutes, it probably seems like a nano-second to students, especially when we factor in the delayed audio in the online environment. So, a best practice for your sessions involves waiting for 3-5 seconds after posing a question. Look at the clock or silently count to yourself if you have to, but give students some time to think.  Some SI Leaders will take a drink from a water bottle after asking a question in order to naturally build in wait time.

• Pause Time – Sometimes, when answering, students pause during their response. It’s easy for SI Leaders to want to maintain momentum, and to not wait on a student at this time.  Again, giving a student a full 3-5 seconds during their pause is essential to promote learning.

• After an Answer – Once a student has answered a question, wait a few seconds before moving on. You could even say, “Hmmm…let’s think about that answer.” Even if the answer was correct, it gives other students an opportunity to add information and think about the mental processes undertaken to arrive at a given answer.

Redirecting a question simply entails  not answering a question directly for the purpose of engaging the student in the learning process.

Redirecting questions helps guide students to the answer by prodding them to perhaps think about why the question was asked and what information they already know, or can reference, in order to find the answer to the question they are asking. 

You can redirect a student question away from yourself by sending the question to 

• another student

• asking the individual who asked the question to try and answer their own question

• the course materials 

Redirecting Questions can be phrased in almost every way imaginable, but here are some suggestions of words/phrases that might be used:

• Why…do you think that is the case?

• What….part of the question do you understand?

• Can…you find that in your notes?

• Does…anyone else know what they (previous answer given by student) are missing?

• Why….don’t you read the question one more time?

• Would…someone like to explain (to confused student) how they found the answer?

Note: Notice how parts of the questions such as: do you, anyone else, and someone are italicized to emphasize how the redirected question is used to focus the attention back on the student(s) and how they themselves can answer the question. Also, take note that redirecting questions is a multi-step process that should consist of the student(s) and SI leader conversing back and forth, rather than the student asking the question and the SI leader answering. 

Checking for understanding is an important step in the learning process.  Unless you check for understanding, it is difficult to know exactly what aspects of the material student are actually processing. You can think about checking for understanding as a loop: learning goals are identified, students provide feedback, and then additional learning goals can be made based on students' errors and misconceptions. 

There are so many different ways to check for understanding, but here are a few to consider: 

Avoid Yes/No questions.

An easy pitfall is asking yes/no questions or phrases like “Does this make sense?” 

These questions do not check for understanding.

In response to these questions, students usually answer “yes”. So of course it’s surprising when several students later admit that they’re lost. To help students grasp ideas, ask pointed questions that require students to use their own prior knowledge, a question like "How did we get to that answer?" or "Why do we do that step first?"

Ask students to reflect.

A good time to check for understanding is during the last five minutes of the session.  Ask students to reflect on the lesson and share one or two big take away or have students summarize or paraphrase important concepts and lessons. This can be done orally, visually, or otherwise.

Use quizzes or summarize. 

Give a short quiz at the end of the session to check for comprehension or follow up a difficult problem/concept with one that is the same/similar. See if students can work through the problem/concept by applying the same ideas that were just covered.  

Here is an optional list of 62 ways to check for understanding.