Victim or Volunteer?

Last week we were required to try 1 of 3 questioning techniques.  I decided to try the cold-calling technique.  (Side note: Our class is VERY quiet, so we usually cold-call anyway.) Despite that, I figured it would be interesting to try a more structured method for cold-calling. I made index cards labeled with each student's name and randomly pulled from the stack for answers to questions.  Initially, the students were confused, but overall it worked well.  For the most part, each student got a chance to answer questions, and we (teachers) were surprised at how many students knew the information but never raised their hand.

I liked the more structured cold-calling technique and I look forward to implementing a similar method in my classroom this fall.

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