The REAL Reset: Math Moves That Matter – Tuesday Edition

Wait Time Series

Part 1: Wait For It... Except You're Not

The REAL Story

One thing that has always been non negotiable in my math classroom is math discourse. Baby, we are not just doing math in my classroom, we are talking about it every single week using claim, evidence and reasoning because I have seen firsthand what happens to a student's understanding when they can speak the math out loud and defend it.

Early in my career I did most of the talking. Once I realized that needed to change, I shifted my focus to questioning. But even after I improved my questioning, I still was not getting the responses I was looking for from my students.

I would ask a quality question and then immediately undermine it by not giving my students enough time to actually answer it. I recorded myself teaching one day and I realized real quick I was the problem.

I started timing the space between when I asked a question and when I either called on someone or answered it myself. Two seconds. Sometimes less. I was asking middle schoolers a question that required real thinking and before they even had a chance to get into it, I was already moving on.

And here is what really got me. These are young adolescents whose brains are still developing. The part responsible for reasoning and making connections is still growing. I was expecting them to pull up a strategy, connect it to something new, figure out what they wanted to say, and feel confident enough to say it out loud in front of their peers. In two seconds.

No wonder the same kids kept answering. The fast processors were the only ones who could work within the window I was giving. Everyone else was still finding their footing when I moved on.

Every time I filled that silence too fast I was not helping. I was replacing their thinking with mine. And over time I was training them to wait me out because they knew I would eventually step in. I was cutting off the very thing I was asking them to do.

Telling myself to wait longer did not work. The silence would feel so loud that I would jump in before I even realized I did it. So I stopped relying on willpower and built the pause into the structure instead.

Before class I passed out four sticky notes to every student. When I asked a question that needed real thinking behind it, I told them to write their response on the sticky note. Sixty seconds. Sticky note in the corner of the desk when finished.

That one move shifted everything. The kids who always answered first could not take over anymore. The kids who needed more time had sixty full seconds without watching someone else's hand go up and feeling like they were already behind. It also gave me a real opportunity to assess where every student was in real time. And when we came back together, more students were ready to talk because they had actually thought first. The sticky note did not just slow things down. It protected the thinking.

💕 3 Moves That Make Wait Time Real Instead of Something You Just Say You Do

1️⃣ Build the pause in before class starts, not in the moment. Telling yourself to wait longer does not work and I know because I tried it. I would ask the question, feel the silence sitting there, and before I even realized it I had already moved on. So I stopped relying on a reminder and built the pause into the class structure before I even got there. I passed out four sticky notes to every student before class started. When I asked a question that needed real thinking behind it, I told them to write it down. Sixty seconds, sticky note in the corner of the desk when finished. I did not have to decide to wait anymore because the wait was already decided.

2️⃣ Protect the thinkers who need every single second. What the sticky note also did was take the quick thinkers out of the driver's seat. And I say that with love because those students are not doing anything wrong. But when a hand goes up in four seconds, every other student in the room reads that as a signal to stop thinking. The student with the sticky note cannot raise their hand. They have to write. And that means the student who needed thirty more seconds to get there actually gets those thirty seconds without feeling like they already lost.

3️⃣ Use the partner share before you open it to the room. Once the sixty seconds were up I did not go straight to the whole class. I had students share what was on their sticky note with a partner first. Some of my students needed to say their thinking out loud one time before they were ready to bring it to the room. That partner share was not extra. It was the step that made the whole class conversation actually work because by the time we opened it up, more students had something real to say.

The Close

I recorded myself thinking I was patient and found out I was giving two seconds to kids whose brains are still developing. That was humbling. Not the kind of humbling where you feel bad for a minute and move on, but the kind where you have to actually change something.

The sticky note fixed what my good intentions could not. I had been telling myself for years that I was giving students time to think, and the video showed me I was lying to myself. Two seconds is not wait time. It is a pause right before you answer your own question.

Structure will always beat willpower in a classroom full of students looking at you.

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Tiffany Smith, Ed. D., Your Culturally Responsive Math Specialist

Founder, Education Evolution, LLC | Creator, The REAL Framework™ | Creator of Mind the Gap Curriculum™

"Here’s to classrooms filled with real growth, real talk, and REAL results."

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