Waiting for students to speak

In a 1986 paper, research showed that teachers gave students typically 1 second or less to reply to a question, while the threshold for positive effects turns out to be 2.7 seconds.

• Giving students more time to respond changed students' attitudes and behavior, and increased the number of questions and unprompted contributions by students.
• Deliberately increasing wait times also contributes positively to the teacher's attitudes and behavior by forming more cohesive and constructive development of ideas, probing for clarification of elaboration, and encouraging fair expectations across a group of students.