A Starter for Regularly Checking for Understanding

Pick non-volunteers

An inclusive way of calling on students without them volunteering and keeping them accountable for thinking and participating in the classroom.

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What problem does it solve?

Having the same students responding to questions.

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Why should I use it?

“Learning is invisible.” Daisy Christodoulou. We have to be able to call on students to display their thinking because we can’t see it. Another reason is because it ensures equity of voice by getting more of our students talking, more of the time. It establishes the expectation in the classroom that all students can be called upon at any time because you value their opinion and care about what they know.

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When can I use it?

When checking for understanding.


How could you do it?

  1. Set up for a cold call.

    • Direct all students to think about the question or prompt

  2. Cold call

    • Choose students to respond to the question or prompt. This can be random or targeted

  3. Embed pair-share

    • Provides students with an opportunity for students to build their thinking in a safe space with a partner before

  4. Build trust and warmth

    • Low stakes, high support environment

☝️ Common Mistakes

  • Cold-calling the student before you’ve asked the question. This lets the other students off the hook because they already know which one is responding.

  • Asking questions like, “Does everyone understand?” or “Does anyone have any questions?” does not uncover the actual answer to this

  • Thinking that providing feedback leads to students feeling more reluctant to respond 

  • Assuming that students who are lacking in confidence should not be put on the spot. Targeting students who you know weren’t listening or don’t know the answer to “catch them out”.

How can I make it even better?

  • Combine with, ‘No opt out’. They might not have a response straight away, but requiring a response from everyone demonstrates a belief that every class member deserves to contribute to the discussion

  • Insert wait time

  • Call on students twice to show them that they have to stay engaged even after they’ve responded

  • Have the class respond to the student who has been “cold-called”

  • The say it again better strategy maintains your high expectations and ensures that students are providing correct answers rather than half-right ones. So, after the initial response, the teacher provides corrective feedback and then gives the student another opportunity to, “say it again better”.

How could I measure impact?

  • Before and after
    Record how often each student in the class responds to a question before starting the Sprint and after practising.

  • Be intentional about questioning - design them ahead of time with your Teaching Sprint team and collect data on key students you want to see contributing more effectively

 Example

  • The school leadership team wants to develop some engagement norms across the school. They thought that increasing the percentage of students who were thinking in the classroom would be a good place to start. Head teachers decided to trial it in their own classrooms and decided to run a Sprint using Bronwyn Ryrie Jones’ video, “ Pick Non-Volunteers'' or "Cold Call".

  • The teachers decided to try and start using it in all of their classes, but were only going to record the results for three of them. At the Check-in Meeting, it was brought up that one of the challenges had not just been for teachers to change their habit of picking students with their hand up, but also for students to stop putting their hand up. They discussed the importance of also focusing on explicitly teaching the new engagement norms to the students.

    Intentional observations and evidence collection

    They decided to record how often each student in the class responded to a question before starting the Sprint and after practising.

  • Staff discussed how the focus on picking non-volunteers had been beneficial to stay on top of the new habit.

    Discussion of relevant evidence

    It was evident in the data that there was a greater spread among the students who were being asked to respond. Teachers also provided anecdotal feedback that they felt they had a better understanding of where their students were at.

For More Information

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Check responses of all students
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Peer feedback