Give Time to Think

“Students may say they don't have a question about a certain situation, but I often find they're just processing what's going on and may have questions later.”

-a Manitoba OT fieldwork educator

Whether it is responding to your question or commenting on an interaction that has just occurred, students at this stage need extra time to process information.  It takes them longer to process what they’ve seen/read/heard-so it makes sense that it takes them longer to process what questions they might have.  It also takes students longer to respond to your questions.  This might be because they are looking for that “one right answer” and/or that they need to sort through/organize all the information they have learned in school and on placement.   

In light of this, the tip of the week is:

Give time to think:

o        If you know you are going to debrief later in the day, give the student some questions to consider in advance.  “When we meet at the end of the day, I’d like you to share what you thought went well with this initial assessment and what you’d do differently next time.”

 

o       After asking a question, wait at least 5 seconds (you may want to add more time if English isn’t the student's first language)

o   Encourage the student to write out/jot down their answers before responding to you to you later that day.

 

o      If there is another student available, have the student process out loud with his/her peer before responding to you

So what do you do when you’ve allowed more time to think and the answer still isn’t “right”?

o     Let them know what is “right” about their answer; use probing questions to help guide them onto the right track

o     Share your reasoning /think out loud to share how you processed the information

 Please feel free to check out these related blog posts:

Creating a safe learning environment

Who, What, When , Why and How…Coaching Questions to Foster Reasoning.

Think Out Loud

Lisa