Rethinking Wait Time:

The first discussion of the instructional technique of “wait-time” was published in 1969 by Mary Budd Rowe in the Science and Children journal, addressing the elementary science classroom. In 1972, Rowe analyzed wait-time from more than 900 classrooms and first identified two different concepts of wait-time: wait-time I and wait-time II. Wait-time I was defined as the time a teacher pauses after a question; it generally starts when the teacher stops speaking and ends when a student responds or the teacher speaks again. Wait-time II was defined as the time a teacher waits after a student responds to either a comment or asks another question which normally begins from the time the student stops talking to the time the teacher starts to comment. Rowe (1972, 1974) reported significant impacts on student and teacher discourse in classrooms with a mean wait-time of three to five seconds. Lake (1973) defined wait-time as the time a teacher is prepared to wait after asking a question and/or after receiving a response. Unlike Rowe (1972, 1974) who defined wait-time as a pause after a question or comment, Lake (1973) defined wait-time as a pause preceding any teacher remark or question. He further defined “criterion wait-time” as wait-time of three seconds or more (Lake 1973). Fowler (1975) defined wait-time as the silence in a conversation following a teacher or student utterance and was the first researcher to use teacher wait-time as an “easily managed independent variable” (p. 38) that could be manipulated to increase student discourse without “introducing an undesirable artificiality to the nature of a conversation” (p. 38). This began the transition of “wait” in wait-time from an adjective or description of time into a concept to be studied on its own. Thus, the term used to describe this instructional technique began to shift from “wait-time” to “wait time.”

In the 1980’s the instructional technique was beginning to be explored in other disciplines outside of Science. In the 1980’s, Gooding (1982, 1984, 1985), DeTure and Miller (1985), and Tobin (1986) added to the growing definitions of wait time. DeTure and Miller (1985) defined wait-time as the amount of time after a question is asked that a teacher waits before accepting an answer, repeating a question, rephrasing a question, or supplying the answer which aligns with Rowe’s wait-time I. Tobin (1980; 1986), similar to Fowler (1975), defined wait time as pausing before any teacher or student speaking opportunity and essentially combined Rowe’s (1972, 1974) wait-time I and wait-time II. According to Jegede and Olajide (1995), “Rowe’s wait time 1 is equivalent to what Tobin labeled as the length of time preceding any teacher utterance (TT), and Rowe’s wait time 2 is labeled as the length of pause preceding any student utterance (ST) respectively” (p. 235 ). In 1987, Tobin further declared that wait time is “defined in terms of the duration of pauses” (p. 69). In the 1990s, research on wait time was still being conducted. However, synonyms for wait time begin to emerge in literature. Robert Stahl (1990) coined the term “think time” as a distinct period of uninterrupted silence by the teacher and all students so that they both can complete appropriate information processing tasks, feelings, oral responses, and actions. Stahl (1990) prefered the label "think-time" over "wait-time" because the primary academic purpose of wait time is to allow students and the teacher to complete on-task thinking. Regardless of research field, the benefits of wait time longer than 3 seconds continued to be proven and highlighted in research.

In the 2000’s, wait time continued to be studied and discussed in conjunction with effective classroom questioning and discourse techniques for both elementary and secondary mathematics and science classrooms (Chapin et al. 2003; Chapin et al. 2009; Corhrssen et al. 2014; Ingram and Elliott 2014; Rowe 2003; Walsh and Sattes 2005). Wait time became synonymous with intentional “silence” (Chapin et al. 2003), “think time” (Walsh and Sattes 2005; Chapin et al. 2009), “purposeful pauses” (Cohrssen et al. 2014). The importance of wait time II was re-emphasized, as much discussion highlighted wait time I (Chapin et al. 2003; Chapin et al. 2009). Ingram and Elliott (2014) acknowledged that wait time is not a rigid pause but more of a fluent element of conversation which indicates that the discourse in a classroom setting can be natural; natural conversations happen every day in the classroom that do not require a student or teacher initiated prompt for wait time to materialize. Corhrssen et al. (2014) analyzed early childhood mathematics teachers as they “purposefully paused” before responding to a child during play-based mathematics activities-- essentially renaming Rowe’s (1972) wait-time II -- and highlighted the connection between wait time and equitable access to discourse moves for children. Corhrssen et al. (2014) further discussed how pauses were not necessarily silent: a pause in an interaction with one child could be used strategically to model the learning interaction with a second child before returning to the first child in order to continue the discourse sequence.

One of the authors, a mathematics teacher educator, was supervising a preservice teacher, who was struggling with facilitating effective classroom discourse. One of the major barriers his mentor teacher and the coauthor discussed with him was his lack of wait time; that is, he had a tendency to ask a question and then almost immediately ask another question or launch into an explanation, providing almost no opportunity for the students to respond. To help him better understand what was going on, he was shown a chart depicting his utterances with a “T” for teacher, and his students’ utterances with an “S” for student (Ellis, Parrish, and Martin 2019), as shown in the following:

TTTSTTSTTS

Continued coaching on wait time provided some improvement, with more student participation in class discussion. However, there was still little student-to-student interaction, as shown in the following:

TSTSTSTTS

Thus, while he was asking good questions and waiting to get student responses, most of the discussion was still teacher-centered. So what was the problem? Further analysis led to the realization that he was still not providing adequate wait time -- although he was waiting after asking a question, he was immediately responding to what the students said, again failing to provide the students an opportunity to respond. This led to further coaching using a simple strategy: Wait before you talk, not just after you talk. The student-to-student interactions indeed improved as a result, as shown in the following:

TSSTSTSTTTSTSSSTST

This experience led to him having an extended discussion of wait time with the remaining authors, who were in a later class on advanced teaching methods. As the authors explored wait time in their own classrooms as part of the class exploration, they found similar results. In this article, the graduate students share surprising research from the literature, going back more than fifty years, their own experiences in broadening their conception of wait time, and tips for others wanting to improve their ability to facilitate meaningful classroom discourse. Before you read further - and to set the tone for the remaining article - stop reading and pause while repeating the following: “One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi.” Now think about how this simulation of a three-second wait made you feel. How do you think this would impact the classroom?

This lesson which focused on quadratic functions, began with a warm-up in which students were asked to analyze two tables of values: one for a linear function and one for a quadratic function. Students were asked to write down their observations, and a full-class discussion of their ideas followed:

T: Would anyone like to share what they wrote down?

6 seconds pass

S: The table on the left (linear function table) has numbers on the bottom that go up, and the table on the right (quadratic function table) has numbers that go up and down.

The teacher nods but does not verbally respond to the student. Other students look back at the teacher and look down at their notes but hesitate to respond.

10 seconds pass

T: So, I want you all to think about that response. Would anyone like to add to it or add their own response? Remember that this is an open conversation so you do not have to wait for me to respond. You can just respond to each other the same way as if you were outside of the class and not facing the front of the room.

After this reminder, two more students add their responses. Seeing how this use of wait time in this lesson increased students’ participation encouraged the teacher to continue working to make wait time a part of the normal classroom culture. During each class meeting, students were reminded about ways in which they could participate in the class that included them responding to each other rather than the teacher being the sole authority of what counts as knowledge in the classroom. As a result, the teacher began focusing more on what students were saying and how students were responding to each other rather than merely looking for correct mathematical solutions.

The following lesson focused on exponential functions after two months of routinely implementing wait time. Similar to the previous lesson, the lesson started with a warm-up in which students were asked to make observations about two graphs: a graph of a linear function and a graph of an exponential function. Students were given about five minutes to record several observations. At that point, the following exchange ensued:

T: Would anyone like to share what they noticed about the graphs?

3 seconds pass

S1: I saw that one of the graphs looks like a linear graph because it is going up at the same

rate.

S2: Yeah, the slope is positive for that one.

3 seconds pass

S1: The other graph doesn’t look like it has the same slope.

2 seconds pass

S3: It looks like the other graph doesn’t have a slope? I don’t know. It’s going up but not in

a straight line.

S2: It’s going up slow at first but then goes up fast.

T: What do you notice about the y-intercept and the x-intercept for the two graphs?

2 seconds pass

S3: One of them has an x-intercept and the other one doesn’t.

This discussion went on for several more minutes, resulting in the students identifying the characteristics that determine whether a function is exponential.

Unlike the earlier lesson, students did not hesitate to share their thoughts even if they were unsure about the solution or unsure of how to explain their thinking. Thus, even though the incorporation of wait time may initially be somewhat daunting and awkward, perseverance with wait time helps to generate meaningful discourse in the classroom. As Chapin et al. (2003) and Walsh and Sattes (2005) both suggest, it takes time to build wait time as a part of normal classroom practice and norms. Teachers must introduce the new technique behaviors to students and “adopt classroom norms that support them” (Walsh & Sattes 2005).

After discussing the benefits of wait time in the graduate level methods class, another author, a high school mathematics teacher, began to implement this instructional technique in their Advance Placement (AP) Statistics class. The class in this vignette was focused on sampling techniques; students often struggle with putting the definition into practice and identify where bias may occur. At this point in the semester, the students knew how to define a simple random sample (SRS) but had not actually collected data using this sampling technique. In this lesson, students were asked to take a SRS of candy from a bag that contained 400 pieces but of varying sizes and amounts; for example, only 2% of the candies were larger candy like Ring-Pops. The following dialogue occurred after each student was asked to find an SRS sample of candy size n=5, 10, 20 & 40. Note that the teacher had been working to implement wait time in her class for a couple of weeks.

Teacher: Can you describe your process of sampling the candy?

4 seconds pass

Student 1: I randomly selected candies of different sample sizes out of the bags. I did a SRS.

Student 2: How did he select them randomly?

Student 3: Yeah. Don’t we have to do the random sampling using a computer? Or shuffling?

2 seconds pass

Student 1: I mixed the candy up before I sampled it. So that makes it a SRS.

2 seconds pass

Student 2: I reached into the bag with my eyes closed and pulled out 10 pieces of candy.

2 seconds pass

Student 2: It isn’t a convenience sampling technique but it isn’t a simple random sample either.

6 seconds pass

Teacher: What other strategies did you use for sampling?

2 seconds pass

Student 3: I grabbed all of my favorite candies.

Student 4: That isn’t random! I think we did a convenience sampling, because I grabbed the candies that were on top.

Student 5: Wouldn’t we be doing a stratified sampling method since there are different types of candies that could be grouped together?

5 seconds pass

With each attempt to define the sampling technique, the teacher got more and more information about what the students knew about the various sampling techniques. After the first student showed a misunderstanding of how to conduct an SRS, the teacher could have easily corrected them, informing the students that they did a convenience sampling method even if it was unintentional. With each new pause, students had time to consider what the other students had said and give their thoughts on the solutions presented. Students began to evaluate and give feedback on each other’s description of the sampling technique. The wait time provided an opportunity for the teacher to assess student knowledge and pivot to a review of sampling techniques that was clearly needed before moving on.

Following the sampling review, the class continued the discussion on the sampling technique that was used by the student to select the candy and how it affected the mean that was reported to estimate the population’s mean.

Teacher: Let’s say you did sample size n = 20, did you dump them back in the bag before selecting the n = 40? Would that be a SRS?

3 seconds pass

Student 1: I did not put them back, because I had already counted out 20.

Student 2: There is a flaw in our sampling technique!

Student 3: We also were sampling at the same time as our partners.

4 seconds pass

Teacher: What would happen if your partner chose all of the Ring-pops and you were drawing at the same time?

4 seconds pass

Student 4: Their mean will be higher automatically, and mine would be lower.

Student 1: Yeah, they would have the heavier candies.

4 seconds pass

Teacher: After this discussion, how do you feel about your sampling technique and your reported mean?

2 seconds pass

Student 1: It’s just that the Ring-pop is bigger than the other candy so you couldn’t not pick it. You are going to grab a candy that is bigger.

2 seconds pass

Student 2: It takes up more area of the bag.

2 seconds pass

Student 1: So my sample mean was higher than it should have been.

Student 3: If it is bigger it will be at the top. Like if you shake a bag of popcorn, the smaller pieces fall to the bottom.

Student 4: The gobstoppers are probably at the bottom.

3 seconds pass

Student 1: The mean could be lower if we sampled more of the candy on the bottom.

Teacher: How could we do a sample that will give us an unbiased estimate of the population?

As a result of this discussion, the class was able to see not only the flaws in their sampling techniques but also how the flaw affects the estimate they made about the population. The class was able to build on preexisting knowledge and earlier class discussions on how to avoid sampling bias as well as fully experience how sampling techniques can affect population estimates.

The teacher had used this activity to help explain sampling bias for many years. However, the use of wait time dramatically altered the class discussion. In previous years, a short discussion of each approach was immediately followed by an evaluation of the sampling technique used, resulting in students only partially understanding how their sampling technique resulted in an overestimation of the mean. With the inclusion of wait time, student engagement increased as a space was created for them to critique one another. Each response built upon their peer’s thoughts and gave the teacher valuable information about student knowledge. The teacher pivoted her lesson when she noticed the students’ understanding of sampling techniques needed clarification. The resulting discussion that occurred provided students the opportunity to realize how the biased sampling technique would give an inaccurate estimate and allowed students to construct their own understanding of how the bias affected the estimate. Wait time promoted students to reason through the discussion and make sense of why each sampling technique would not be beneficial in making estimates.

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