I have quoted Dylan William before, who says ‘hands up makes the smart kids smarter’. In this blog, I want to say a bit more about why whole-class questioning should not involve hands up, and also set out the far better alternative that many teachers – but not yet all – espouse.
I grew up putting up my hand to answer questions. Or, to be precise, I put it up when I felt confident I knew the answer – which was some of the time. But I remember another boy in my O’ level history class whose hand always shot up like a startled pigeon when the teacher asked a question – it was clear to me that he knew the answer to every question and, by Jove, he was keen to show it. How his arm must have ached by the end of the school day.
Aside from a student asking a question, it’s hard to think of a single good reason for allowing hands up in class. All it does is provide an opportunity for the most confident students, and the keenest, and the keenest-to-please, to demonstrate their smartness and keenness. What it certainly doesn’t do is provide the teacher with an accurate indicator of whether all of the students, or the majority of them, have understood a thing. How could it? The point here is that asking questions should be mostly about all of the students consistently thinking and having a go, not just some of them. This matters so much because questioning is probably the most common teaching technique in the world – so we need to do it in the way that generates the biggest bang for the buck.
Allowing hands up is a habit because many teachers grew up, like me, throwing up their hand every two minutes, so we have instinctively ingrained it as a habit when we teach; we were taught this way, so it must be the right way to teach. Right?
Wrong. It hampers the learning of the students who don’t typically put up their hand – which is many students, including those who are most in need of being obliged constantly to think. Habits are devilishly hard to shift.
At the risk of labouring the key point: effective whole-class questioning involves typically asking everyone the question, NOT typically targeting it at one person – this is the part that I think some people struggle to get their head round. In a recent interview at my school, we asked the candidates what they thought of our school policy of no hands up, and one said ‘I prefer hands up because ‘cold calling’ makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like putting kids who struggle on the spot…’. Cold calling can do that, and a good case can be made for it, but I’m making a different point here: questions should be asked of everyone.
Teacher to whole class: ‘why do you think the poet is using the words ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ in this line? Think about that for a moment… now share your thoughts with the person next to you …’
Everyone gets the question; it isn’t complicated.
Cold calling is far better than allowing hands up. But typically asking everyone the question, as in the example above, is far better than directing question after question at individual students. Of course, one can cold call after asking everyone to think, which is what many teachers do as their Step Two – but Step One is the key one.
The no-hands-up habit is the one to have, with lots of questions for everyone; when it comes to learning, it wins hands-down every time.
