I used this technique with a very difficult Year 3 class. The only way I could get them to pay attention was to mime everything. They loved it! It became a game to see how long we could hold the silence in the morning; some days we could go for an hour, using mime, whiteboards and lots of gestures. I discovered it by accident when I went in and they were very noisy. To start with, I refused to do anything until they were completely silent. It took nearly 40 minutes of waiting, standing quite still and commanding at the front of the class, but it was worth it in the end. It was the saving grace of that class, who had previously destroyed teachers in a few weeks.
This is a great summary of benefits. I particularly like the comparisons to the movie theater. One other benefit I've found is that if you tend to say too much, like me, then worked examples can end up taking a long time. Silent teacher encourages me to move things along so that they can see the procedure or idea demonstrates in one go, rather than constantly broken up with parenthetical information.
I had a class who were slowly getting more and more noisy as the weeks progressed.
They were a good class, but eventually I was fed up with with the noise, so I opened Microsoft Word and projected it onto the board. Then I started typing.
Just like with the cinema example, everyone was suddenly focussed on the board and what I was going to type next. I would look up, over the monitor, see who wasn't paying attention and single them out by name... by typing something like, "Johnny is still looking out the window."
It worked brilliantly, much like the Silent Teacher method, calmed the class, and allowed me to teach in my preferred method.
Sometimes I would ask a few questions by typing them, and students would respond on mini whiteboards (I love mini whiteboards!)... sometimes a mathematical question (e.g. 17x23), sometimes a knowledge-check question (e.g. What's the inverse operation of squaring?).
With most of the methods, I've found it beneficial to start young... years 7s and 8s are very receptive, but by year 9 and 10, if they haven't been "trained" with these methods, they can fall flat. Just my experience.
I used this technique with a very difficult Year 3 class. The only way I could get them to pay attention was to mime everything. They loved it! It became a game to see how long we could hold the silence in the morning; some days we could go for an hour, using mime, whiteboards and lots of gestures. I discovered it by accident when I went in and they were very noisy. To start with, I refused to do anything until they were completely silent. It took nearly 40 minutes of waiting, standing quite still and commanding at the front of the class, but it was worth it in the end. It was the saving grace of that class, who had previously destroyed teachers in a few weeks.
Yes, sticking to your guns in terms of high expectations is key here. A worthwhile investment in time!
This sounds like a fun game. 🙂
This is a great summary of benefits. I particularly like the comparisons to the movie theater. One other benefit I've found is that if you tend to say too much, like me, then worked examples can end up taking a long time. Silent teacher encourages me to move things along so that they can see the procedure or idea demonstrates in one go, rather than constantly broken up with parenthetical information.
Yes, the increase in speed (by removing redundancy) is definitely a benefit
I had a class who were slowly getting more and more noisy as the weeks progressed.
They were a good class, but eventually I was fed up with with the noise, so I opened Microsoft Word and projected it onto the board. Then I started typing.
Just like with the cinema example, everyone was suddenly focussed on the board and what I was going to type next. I would look up, over the monitor, see who wasn't paying attention and single them out by name... by typing something like, "Johnny is still looking out the window."
It worked brilliantly, much like the Silent Teacher method, calmed the class, and allowed me to teach in my preferred method.
Sometimes I would ask a few questions by typing them, and students would respond on mini whiteboards (I love mini whiteboards!)... sometimes a mathematical question (e.g. 17x23), sometimes a knowledge-check question (e.g. What's the inverse operation of squaring?).
With most of the methods, I've found it beneficial to start young... years 7s and 8s are very receptive, but by year 9 and 10, if they haven't been "trained" with these methods, they can fall flat. Just my experience.
I love this idea, especially now, late in the school year when the kids basically know what to do and they are getting a lot louder.