When do I pause?

Active listening is an important part of communication and refers to a process of listening to understand the speaker. You can signal you value and respect another person by listening with purpose. By pausing to reflect and try on different perspectives, we could learn that while we intended to be helpful, our words might not have had the desired impact.

After the video, you’ll have a chance to practice active listening.

Practice Active Listening!

• Speaker: Take 2-3 minutes to respond to this prompt: 

Was there anything that you found surprising about your Project 1 experience?

• Listener: Please do not interrupt when someone is sharing. You are practicing active listening. When the speaker is done:

Take 1 minute to say what you heard and what you heard from the speaker. You can mirror with phrases like: 

“I heard you say…” or “It sounded like...”

• [If you are in a trio] Observer: Listen and keep time.

• Switch roles.

• If you have additional time, use these prompts to discuss what the activity was like for you.

  • When you were in the “speaker" role: do you think you changed how you communicated knowing that another person was actively listening to you?

  • When you were in the “listener” role: did you find yourself listening in a different way when you knew you were the one reflecting back?

On your web site, create a reflection entry. You can choose to complete this in a written (4-6 paragraphs) or spoken (3-5 minutes as audio or video) format.

Reflect on when an intentional pause can help you be successful in your learning. Use the prompts below to guide your reflection.

• Consider the activities from this class (engaging in SRL with the CPX and practicing active listening). 

  • Did pausing to evaluate where you were in a SRL cycle and/or practicing active listening help you work with the CPX? How do you think your learning experience would have differed without these pauses?

  • What is one takeaway you would share with beginning-of-the-course you about when pausing can help you be strategic in your learning?

• Consider your academic journey. 

  • Can you think of an experience that may have gone differently if you had paused to explicitly use a SRL cycle?

  • Where can active listening support the self-regulated learning cycle? How can it help when you are working in a group? Attending office hours? Asking a question in class?

Here are some takeaways for the topics:

Self-regulated learning

• • The capacity to step back and study our own thought process is called metacognition. It is the foundation for an iterative process called the self-regulated learning (SRL) feedback cycle. 

  • Effective learners use this SRL plan/do/evaluate cycle to come up with a plan, try it out, and use feedback to revise a new plan. 

  • When coming up with a plan, we can be strategic: break a large challenge into smaller pieces, research what others have done for similar tasks, keep a log of what did (not) work, seek feedback from others.

Active listening

• When you engage in active listening, you are not listening to find weaknesses or ways to respond; you are listening to understand.

• [Be open] Create space by pausing and slowing down to notice what you are feeling, and focus on listening actively instead.

• [Practice mirroring] You can act as a mirror by clarifying what you heard. By asking “Can I repeat back to make sure I’m with you?”, we are not only signaling that we are listening, but also ensuring that we understand correctly.

• [Seek perspective] We can try on other perspectives to gain a deeper sense of where they’re coming from. We may still disagree with what they’re saying, but the goal is to see the situation. Instead of immediately jumping to a conclusion or giving advice, take the time to reflect on their words and digest their point of view. And as we form a response, we can continue to consider their perspective and how our response might impact them. A well intended message can still come across otherwise.