Getting Started with Instructional Technology Strategies
As a teacher, when you ask students a question or when you give a student a behavioral prompt, how much time do you give the student to answer or respond to the prompt? In educational jargon this is referred to as “wait time”.
Wait time is the period of silence between the time a question is asked and the time when one or more students respond to that question.
Upon giving either an academic prompt or a behavioral prompt to a student, allow for wait time. It is necessary to give students some time to think about the question and formulate a response. What is the average “wait time” teachers give students to respond to a question (or a behavioral prompt i.e. “Mary, please stop tapping on your desk.”)? Even though it can feel like you have been waiting forever for an answer, or even just some small sign that they heard you, in reality it was probably less than one second. On average, teachers only wait between 0.7 and 1.4 seconds for a response after asking a question (Stahl, 1994).
- 1 second is the average time a teacher waits after asking students a question.
- For most students, it takes 1 to 10 seconds to respond to a question.
- For some kids, it takes 3 or 4 seconds for it to register what you asked for.
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Contact Information
Patricia A. Crum Ed.D. & Terry L. Crum M.S., National Trainers & Educational Consultants
E-mail: drcrum@tlceducationalsolutions.com Website: tlceducationalsolutions.com
Phone: 402.431.2351
About the author
Patricia and Terry draw from over 40 years of educational experience in the roles of teacher, coach, administrator, presenter, and district level leader. They bring together PreK-12 experience and presentation skills to engage teachers and administrators in developing effective instructional, technological, and classroom management strategies. They offer a variety of professional development workshops in classroom management, differentiated instruction, higher-order thinking, student engagement, and formative assessment.