‘Thank you for navigating through the sometimes awkward moments of my silence.’ (Koichiro, Unit 6: 2024)
Context
Over 50% of MA Performance: Society students have specific learning differences, many of which involve challenges around information processing. Some students have said that responding to direct questions in online classes can be stressful because they need time to compose their responses. The capacity to respond to an immediate prompt is complicated by the fact that most MAPS students speak English as an additional language.
The assessment of student engagement is often predicated on their contribution to discussion. Being able to respond quickly and immediately to questions (putting your hand up first in primary school through to mastering a PhD Viva) is still regarded as an indicator of capacity. Over the last 3 years of teaching online, I have gotten better at giving people time to respond, or what Karen Harris refers to as ‘embracing the silence’ (Harris 2022:101). I am more aware of the role of my ego in my desire for immediate responses, and the challenge a faceless room makes to the notion of the tutor as ‘all-seeing and all-powerful’ (Harris 2022:101). Silence in online teaching, has a particular intensity but in no way means that students are not engaging. Some students, such as the one I quote from above, draw on the work of writers such as Ahsan (2022) and embrace silence as a form of activism. Silence no longer makes me anxious, but I am keen to keep finding ways of facilitating engagement that are not predicated on the immediate (debate style) response that still dominates HE.
Current and future ways forwards
I currently invite students to respond to a question by putting 3 words, or an image, in the chat. These individual words/visuals invite a more affective engagement with the question (what the question evokes rather than how you might answer it) and reduce the demand for immediate cognitive solutions. We then use the chat as prompts for further discussion –effectively using the words/images as a bridge between question and response. This technique successfully moves the initial emphasis away from language and demand for fully formed ideas but still asks for an immediate response.
I also employ tasks where students are invited to bring in a 5 minute visual or verbal response to a question, connected to the suggested reading/listening/watching materials, for the following week. This device gives people time to prepare and works well but can invite a summative style of response rather than a process of thinking together.
Moving forwards
What I would like to try next are strategies that invite something in between immediate and asynchronous responses. Devices that, as Harris writes, invite students to listen until they feel they have ‘formulated something worth bringing to the conversation’ (Harris 2022:101). For example, asking a question to frame class thinking at the start of a session and inviting responses to it halfway through and then again at the end. Or creating a conscious gap between provocation and response by giving everyone ten minutes to read and reflect following a prompt.
I’m also going to try a technique I saw teacher Sophie Hope employ where she offered a selection of pre-prepared questions that students could choose from in a Q and A context. This device took the pressure off forming a ‘brilliant’ question whilst keeping student agency and interaction.
References
Ahsan, H. (2017) Shy Radicals: The Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert. Book Works: London.
Harris, K. (2022) Embracing the silence: introverted learning and the online Classroom. Sparks, Vol 5:1, pp 101-104.