The wrong answer isn’t trouble for the teacher – the best of teaching tools

                You’ve mentioned a subject and now you’re doing an informal formative assessment. You throw out a question to the class and wait to see who responds. The first student you ask tells you the correct answer. You are in trouble.

                I kid you not. You need the wrong answer. Really. The correct answer, no matter how well it is stated or how quickly it is offered, gives you nothing to build on. It in no way reveals students’ misconceptions. There’s only one way you can make use of this answer to continue the discussion: fake it.

                You have to say something like this: ‘What if he had answered (fill in the blank with your own wrong answer)’ or ‘What if he had told me (again, fill in the blank).’ Neither of these will ever have the power of the wrong answer. Neither of these is as effective as dealing with the wrong answer given by a student.

                So what do you do with that wrong answer? Do not correct it! That’s right; don’t tell the student the right answer. Instead use it to start a dialogue with the students. That way when they come to realize why that answer was wrong they will own the knowledge and it will stick with them. If you just correct it and move on, no one will be the wiser, not even you.

Here’s an example of how I used this technique many times teaching physics. I introduced physics with a discussion of frame of reference. I started with a question: ‘Right at this moment, are you in motion?’ Students would usually say yes, because I am breathing, my blood is moving, I am moving my hand. Then I qualified my question by explaining that in physics motion is described as an entire body moving from one place to another. Students then told me they were not moving. Next I asked what Earth was doing to create night and day. Of course, they knew it was because it is spinning on its axis. Again I asked: ‘Are you moving?’ Now they said yes.

I relied on someone asking, ‘Then why don’t we feel like we’re moving?’ In a good Socratic manner, I threw the question right back at them. I was sure that at least one student would tell me it was because of gravity. I then asked why astronauts in space can float around. Students knew it was because gravity was not pulling them down. Yet, I would tell them, astronauts report they have no feeling that the space shuttle is moving. So is it gravity?

We would go on in that manner until I would give them a scenario. I chose one student, usually a boy that I needed to get involved in class, and say, ‘John is the only thing in the whole universe that has the ability to actually stand still. He decides to exercise his ability. What will we see him as doing?’

At least on student will tell me that he will run into the wall. I then ask: ‘In the last split second of his life, what will John see us as doing?’ Students tell me he will see us as moving away from him. Then I come back with: ‘Who is right? Is he the one moving or are we?’

Then I could see the light dawn on students and one would tell me: ‘We don’t know we are moving because everything is moving with us.’ And that is the frame of reference.

When I taught older students, frequently I would get the last answer first. That made it much more difficult for me to start the class following my Socratic questioning that was designed to get them to recognize that we are all in motion all the time because we are on Earth.

I had to have all those ‘wrong’ answers in order to get students to confront the fallacies of their thinking and lead them to the ‘correct’ answer. Immediate ‘right’ answers made my task so much harder. 

Remember that the next time you feel you’ve got troubles because a student gave the wrong answer. Use it wisely and it will be your best friend.

               

Trouble when asking the class questions - the child who always knows the answer

                Here’s the trouble. No matter what question you ask the class, hoping to get maximum participation, one child has his hand up immediately. You know he knows the answer, but does he have to show off to the world every blessed day? You try ignoring him, but that just makes him try harder to get your attention until it becomes disruptive to the class.

                You aren’t alone. This is a scenario that has played itself out in every classroom, in every subject and at every age. The trouble isn’t that the child doesn’t know the answer, it’s that he does. When he gives the correct answer right off the bat the chance of your finding the misconceptions held by other students in the class is now nil. Basically, that immediate right answer shuts off class discussion.

                Also you are tired of constantly having to call on that one student when you know others in the class need to participate as well. And there are days you just don’t want to call his name one more time.

                So how do you stop this annoyance without hurting the child’s feelings and having to deal with an angry parent, also?

                What is it exactly that you want from the class? I can already hear your answer: maximum class participation.

                It took me years, but I finally found the solution to this particular classroom trouble. The key is patience and wait time. Here’s how it looks.

                I ask a question of the class. The same hand as always goes up. I wait. If no more hands show, I say: ‘I’m waiting for five hands to be up.’ And then I wait.

                When more hands come up I start to count: ‘I’ve got four hands up now. I still need one more.’

                Finally the fifth hand is raised. I start calling on students. I make it a point to ask every student whose hand was up to respond. Sometimes I call on them in reverse order, sometimes in the order the hands were raised, sometimes it’s purely random.

                When I start with the last hand first, it is not unusual to get this response: ‘I don’t know, I just raised my hand so you’d call on someone.’ If that happens to you, I suggest you thank the individual for being civic minded.

                Of course several of the students will have the same answer. Sometimes I ask as I call on a student: ‘Do you agree with what Mary said?’ Or I may say, ‘Do you have anything to add to what Johnny said?’

                At times, such as when we are doing a review, I feel that every student in class should know the answer. Then I require more hands to be raised before I start calling on students.

                This technique saves me the trouble of trying to avoid the know-it-all student and also maximizes class participation. Besides, students enjoy the challenge of getting so many hands up in the air. It can become such a game with them they try to force a neighbor’s hand up!

When troubles in the classroom require a call to the parent – a teacher’s least favorite chore

                Calling home is the last thing many teachers want to do, at least that certainly was the case for me. After you have listened to the student, talk with the student, changed the seating chart and nothing improves, it is time to make that call. Parents dread receiving such a call as much as teachers dread making it. How can you, as the teacher, help make that call easier for everyone concerned, including the child?

              

  Remember the parent is as anxious as you are for the child to succeed in school. Your call home should be designed to create a partnership between you and the parent, not to cause the two of you to become adversaries. Too often what parents hear when you call to complain about their child is: ‘You’re a bad parent because your child acts up in class.’ I know, I know that’s not what you are saying, but that is what the parent is hearing nevertheless.

Also, you need to acknowledge, parents have a history of interacting with teachers. Many of them had bad experiences with teachers when they were in school and still carry a fear/hatred of teachers in their subconscious. This doesn’t make it any easier for them to get a call from school. And this is most likely not the first call they have gotten from a teacher complaining about their child. When they see their caller ID come up with the school name, they know it’s going to be bad.

                Every communication concerning troubles with a child in class should start the same way. When the parent answers the phone or reads the email the first sentence after the introduction they hear or read is: ‘I am calling to ask your advice.’

                This one sentence immediately takes the conversation into the realm of a consultation. No longer is the call perceived as an accusation. Now it is you seeking the help of the person who knows her child the best, the parent.

                The follow up conversation goes like this: ‘I am having trouble with Johnny; he constantly talks in class when it is inappropriate. I have tried numerous things, but nothing is working. Can you give me some ideas of a better way to handle this situation?’

                I started using this approach from the beginning of my teaching career. During that time I have amazing results, with only a very few negative experiences.

                I called one parent of a seventh grader. I started as I always do. There was complete silence at the other end of the line. I could feel the shock reverberate over the phone line. Then the parent said to me: ‘You are the first teacher in seven years to ever ask me that.’

                She and I had a long conversation about her child. She told me of the problems they had been having in the home and with him. I ask about his interests. She told me about his extracurricular activities and what they meant to him.

                The next day this young boy walked into my classroom smiling. ‘You called my mother.’ And he was thrilled about it! That was the end to the troubles he created in my classroom. He knew I was on much on his side as was his mother and we both wanted to see him succeed in school and in life.