Tips for Teachers by Craig Barton

Cold Call

Cold Call is the opposite of this:

  • Teacher: Can anybody tell me Pythagoras’ theorem?… yes, Josie…
  • Josie: c-squared equals a-squared plus b-squared
  • Teacher: Fantastic. Okay, next question…

Instead of calling for volunteers to answer a question (often referred to a Hands-up), during Cold Call it is the teacher who chooses which student will answer a question

Diagnosis

Please complete this exercise:

  1. Write one reason to use Cold Call in a lesson
  2. Write another reason to use Cold Call in a lesson
  3. Write a reason to use Cold Call in a lesson that no one else will think of
  4. Write a reason not to use Cold Call in a lesson

If you are doing this exercise with a colleague, compare your answers.

Evidence

In Teach like a Champion, Doug Lemov explains:

There are few techniques that can transform a learning environment for the better as quickly

Cold Call has several advantages over hands-up:

  1. Instead of hearing from one confident, possibly high-attaining student nad making judgements about the understanding of the rest of the class based on their response, we can be more strategic in our choice and this strive for a more representative sample
  2. If students realise that they could be called upon to answer at any time, they have a greater incentive to pay attention and keep thinking than in a classroom where they can choose to opt out whenever they feel like it. In other words, the participation ratio is higher.

Cold Call also has an advantage over the other means of participation we will discuss in this section: it is quick and requires no equipment.

However, there are several traps we can fall into when deploying Cold Call that reduce its effectiveness, as well as lots of techniques we can use to drive that participation ratio up even further.

Solution steps

1. Ask the right questions

There is a danger with Cold Call – and indeed any means of participation – that we get bogged down in the details of the technique and forget about the bigger picture: why are we asking the question in the first place.

I find Josh Goodridge’s 6 big teaching challenges from his excellent Responsive Coaching book useful here:

Before we worry about the fifth challenge (Gather and give feedback), we need to ensure we are teaching the right material and driving thought by asking the right questions.

2. Tell your students why you are doing Cold Call

No one likes Cold Call. Your confident students don’t like it because they are forced to contribute less. Your less confident students don’t like it because they are forced to contribute more. So, it’s a good idea to share with students the reason you are choosing who answers questions.

Here is my script:

In this class, when I ask you a question, I don’t want you to raise your hands. I want all of you to think hard about the answer, and then I will select one or two of you to share your answer with the rest of the class.

So, when I call your name, it is because I really want to hear what you think. Everyone’s thoughts are valuable. I want to be able to help you if you are struggling (because I’m sure others will be struggling too), and I want you to be able to help others with your answer if they do not understand.

So, if I call your name, don’t worry, just tell me what you think the answer is. And if I don’t call your name, don’t worry either – you will get your chance soon.

3. Move to Pastore’s perch and step away from the speaker

You can improve the effectiveness of Cold Call by considering your position in the classroom. Adam Boxer recommends we step away from the speaker and move to Pastore’s perch – the position in the classroom that enables us to see the greatest number of students:

Stepping away from the speaker during Cold Call has three benefits:

  1. It increases the chance of the student speaking louder
  2. You can keep an eye on the other students
  3. It communicates the message that this is not a one-to-one conversation

4. Ask the question, then say the name

Did you notice the classic Cold Call trap this teacher fell into?

As soon as you say the name of the student you want to answer the question, the incentive for all other students to think disappears.

So, to keep the participation ratio as high as possible, we should ask the question first, and then give the name of the student we want to answer.

Most teachers know this, but it can be hard to make this way of asking questions habitual because it is unnatural. In no other walk of life do we ask questions in this way.

5. Give adequate thinking time before taking the answer

The teacher remembers to put the name second this time, but falls into another Cold Call trap.

The thinking time she gives between the question and calling upon a student to answer is so short that no-one else in the class has an opportunity to think hard about the question.

Researcher, Mary Budd Rowe, calls the thinknig time between asking a question and calling upon a student to respond Wait Time 1. In research spanning 20 years she concludes that teachers typically wait between 0.7 seconds and 1.5 seconds before speaking after they have asked a question.

Budd Rowe advises increasing this to a minimum of 3 seconds to allow students to think hard about the question. This will benefit all students, but especially students who lack confidence.

6. Let students write their answer down before you Cold Call

One surefire way of increasing the thinking time you give students is to let them write down their answers before you Cold Call. As well as boosting the participation ratio, allowing students to write first has other benefits:

  1. It allows for more considered responses
  2. It may encourage less confident students to participate
  3. It allows students to actively listen to their peers as they don’t have to try to remember what they were going to say
  4. It could provide a frame of reference for a Turn and Talk
  5. It could be used for a whole class check for understanding, especially if the writing is done on mini-whiteboards

This can be used for any question, but is especially important for those that require a more complex response:

7. Ask students to respond using full sentences

There are three benefits to asking students to respond to a Cold Call using full sentences:

  1. It reduces the chance of knowledge being fragmented and meaningless – if they later only recall the answer they gave and not the question, then they may struggle to make the connection
  2. It may help improve students’ written communication
  3. It helps students who might not have been paying attention – if they only hear the answer, then they may end up with a knowledge gap

8. Give adequate thinking time after hearing the response

There is a second phase of thinknig time that teachers do not typically allow sufficient time for: the one that comes between a student’s response to a Cold Call and the teacher’s next move.

That next move could be to confirm the answer, ask another student what they think, or instigate a Turn and Talk based on the answer. But the key point is that the next move typically happens immediately after the first student has responded and crucially before anyone has had sufficient time to think about that response.

Researcher Mary Budd Rowe finds that, on average, teachers allow their students less than one second to process an answer before reacting to it in some way.

If, instead, we can allow for a few more seconds of silent thinking time following a student’s response to a Cold Call – again, 3 seconds is the magic number here – we give our students the opportunity to compare their answer to the one they have just heard, which puts them in a much stronger position to benefit from whatever our next move is.

These extra seconds of thinking time also benefit the teacher, giving us an opportunity to process a student’s response and plan our next action accordingly.

One final note: not saying anything after a student has given an answer is a weird thing to do. Your students may look at you like you are a YouTube video that is buffering. So, the first time you do this it is worth signalling to the students what you are doing:

I want you all to think about Harry’s answer in silence for the next few seconds

9. Manage your tell

Even if we allow sufficient thinking time after a student responds to a Cold Call, we risk wasting time by revealing whether the answer is correct or not.

Often, teachers have “tells” that alert students to whether the answer is correct. These may be verbal tells—perhaps we only say “are you sure?” when an answer is incorrect—or physical tells, such as a smile or a sigh.

If students know whether an answer is correct or not, it robs them of their opportunity to think hard about an answer.

A good way to combat verbal tells is to introduce a stock phrase that you use after each answer, regardless of whether it is correct or not. “Thank you” is a good one here.

As for physical tells, it is worth asking your students if you do anything that gives away whether an answer is correct or not. Their perception may surprise you.

10. Check for active listening

I have a hypothesis that as soon as a student is called upon to answer a question, many other students stop paying attention. After all, why should they? This is an interaction between the teacher and that one student, it is nothing to do with them.

This is not ideal. We want a culture in our classroom where everyone listens to each other. Not only is not listening impolite and can lead to off-task behaviour issues, but it may also lead to lost opportunities to learn if students miss a key insight from their classmates.

A simple way to address this is to ask another student to repeat what their classmate just said:

Be aware of falling into this trap:

The issue here is that Kyle does not need to have listened to a word Harry has said. Kyle, especially if he is smart, can just answer the original question.

He is an example of this. The teacher is asking students to expand 5(3y + 8).

Lucy has not been listening to Mason’s explanation. And yet, because of the way the teacher phrases the question, she almost gets away with it.

Instead, try something like this:

Students must not only demonstrate they have been listening to their classmates but also demonstrate their own level of understanding. In such circumstances, Doug Lemov gives students 3 options when responding to a classmate’s answer:

  1. Agree
  2. Disagree
  3. Build

11. Build an explanation through a sequence of Cold Calls

Research finds that Cold calling is most effective when used to develop collaboration and discussion between pupils.

This might be achieved by Cold Calling pupils to respond to their classmates’ contributions (for example to agree with, build on or disagree with what has been said) rather than asking individual questions to different students.

I saw a great example of this during a lesson visit:

  • Teacher: Why is this question difficult?… (wait)… Mohammed?
  • Mohammed: We only know the area of the square and nothing else
  • Teacher: (wait)… So, what do we need to know?… (wait)… Ellie?
  • Ellie: We need to find the length of the sides
  • Teacher: (wait)… What is the first step we are going to do?… (wait)… Gihan?
  • Gihan: We need to find the total area, and then the shaded area and then…
  • Teacher: Thanks Gihan, just stop there… (wait)…. Lucy, finish off what Gihan was saying please
  • Lucy: And then subtract the shaded area from the total area…

Notice:

  1. We have four different students involved here.
  2. Lucy is asked to build upon what Gihan said, demonstrating both listening and understanding
  3. The opportunity for thinking time before and after a student’s response
  4. Putting the name after the question

12. Write students’ answers on the board

Just as asking students to write their answers down before a Cold Call can help us allocate sufficient thinking time before taking a response, writing student answers on the board is a good way to allocate sufficient thinking time for you and your students after hearing a response.

Writing student answers on the board has the added advantage of serving as a frame of reference for any subsequent discussion instead of relying on students to hold each different answer in their working memory.

13. Cold Call regularly and in batches

There are three reasons to Cold Call at several stages in a lesson, and always include several Cold Call in one batch:

  1. It keeps students paying attention – if students know they could be called upon to answer a question at any time, their incentive to keep listening and thinking increases
  2. It gives you regular data on students’ understanding – the more questions you ask, the more reliable your sense of whole class understanding
  3. It makes errors not so much of a big deal – a wrong answer to a lone Cold Call may be perceived as a big deal to the student who gave it. But one wrong answer amidst lots of other answers is not such an issue.

14. Change how you invite students to contribute

Another finding from the research above is when Cold Calling is not framed as a collaborative activity, participation can be perceived as a moral obligation. Here, the teacher acts as a task-setting authority, observing and waiting for students to comply. This can lead to hesitant and minimal student responses.

A good way to overcome this is to change how you invite students to participate. Two of my favourites are:

  1. “Harry, can you get us started…”
  2. “Harry, I’d love to hear your thinking on this…”

Both imply the encounter will be more collaborative than task-setting, which should make students more willing to participate.

15. Cold Call to check students are listening

One of my favourite uses of Cold Call is to check for listening. Regular checks for listening can create a culture where more students pay attention more of the time, thus boosting the participation ratio.

Three examples of using Cold Call to check for listening are:

  1. Explanations: What did I just say is the first step?… Harry?
  2. Instructions: What was that last instruction… Harry?
  3. Listening to peers: What did Emma just say?… Harry

You can read more about checking for listening here.

16. Consider tracking student participation

Some teachers who are far more conscientious than me track student participation using what David Didau terms messy markbooks. On his blog, David shares two examples:

17. Ask some students twice in a lesson

Two minutes into a lesson, Harry has been cold-called to answer a question. When will Harry be Cold Called again? Potentially not for the rest of the lesson. Or certainly not for a while. Harry is well aware of this, so he can take a cognitive break any time he pleases, safe in the knowledge that his classmates who have yet to be chosen to answer are in the firing line ahead of him.

While keeping an eye on student participation is important, you don’t want to fall into this trap. So, now and again, Cold Call a student you have only recently heard from. And make what you are doing explicit:

Why do we divide by 3?… Harry

And Harry, I know I asked you a question a minute ago, and you got it right.

But in this class, anyone could be asked at any time, so everyone keep listening and thinking!

Once students are aware you are doing this, taking a cognitive break is no longer an option and the participation ratio increases.

18. Don’t make being Cold Called a punishment or a trap

Harry, I will ask you this one because I don’t think you were listening to me…

I see this often, either with checks for understanding or listening. Cold Call should not be used as a punishment for switching off, nor a trap to catch students out. Inviting students to contribute via Cold Call should be a positive experience for students, and students should be aware that its primary purpose is to give the teacher useful information that they can use to help students learn better.

So, whilst you may be tempted to Cold Call students who you suspect aren’t listening more than other students, resist the temptation, and spread the Cold Call love around a bit.

19. Use Warm Call

With Cold Call, you do not know what response a student will give. With Warm Call, you have collected some information on how they are likely to respond. Perhapos you have seen their response on their mini-whiteboard or their choice of answer to a multiple chcie question. Or maybe you have overheard their answer during a Turn and Talk or group work task.

There are two reasons why you might want to do this:

  1. You can choose the most useful answers to share – perhaps you spotted or overheard a common misconception or a different way of thinknig about an answer
  2. You can boost students’ confidence – perhaps there is a student in your class who lacks confidence but now you know they have got an answer correct. Calling upon them to answer when you know the outcome will be positive can help build the confidence needed to contribute more in lessons.

20. Don’t completely ditch hands-up

I work with several schools who have a no-hands up policy. I think this is a mistake. Whilst I believe most teachers could benefit from shifting a proportion of their questions where they call upon hands-up to questions where they use Cold Call, asking for volunteers still has a role to play.

Here are four scenarios you may choose hands-up ahead of Cold Call:

  1. To find knowledge in the room – you have Cold Called 3 students who all do not know the answer, so you ask if anyone knows
  2. To find other methods – perhaps following a worked example or after going through an answer to a test
  3. To find questions – asking if anyone has any questions after a worked example or correction
  4. To reward enthusiasm – sometimes the right thing to do is to let the child who is bursting to tell you something have a chance to speak

21. Try All Hands-Up Cold Calling

Let’s end with a twist.

On my podcast, Science teacher Pritesh Raichura introduced me to All Hands-Up Cold Calling. Pritesh asks students to raise their hands if they think they know the answer to a question, and then Cold Calls a student with their hand raised:

Here are four reasons All Hands-Up Cold Calling is worth trying:

  1. High energy and engagement

Which classroom would you prefer to be in: one where students are sat still waiting to be called upon to answer, or now like the picture about where all students have their hands raised desperate to tell you the answer?

2. Mass participation without the faff of mini-whiteboards

Whilst the data you get from All Hands-Up Cold Call will never be as reliable as you would get from seeing all students’ responses on mini-whiteboards, it does tell you something valuable, and it tells you immediately.

3. Informs your next action in the moment

All Hands-Up Cold Call gives you data on students’ perceptions of understanding. What you see in front of you may determine your next move:

  • All hands are up: Cold Call a student or ask for responses on mini-whiteboards
  • Some hands up: Ask students to do a Turn and Talk and then revote
  • Few hands-up: Call for a volunteer or explain yourself

4. Allows you to follow up later

Pritesh explains this better than I ever could:

Demanding ‘all hands up’ reveals to you which individuals aren’t participating. This data is a gift & key to addressing the issue. Make a list of these students.

Seek these students out to have a chat with them at break or lunch: what’s stopping them participating? Gee them up. Show them you believe in them. Tell them you have high standards & that you will hold them to account because you want them to succeed. Tell them you care.

Pritesh writes about All Hands-Up Cold Calling in a blog post here.

Want to know more?

  1. Claudia Lewis has an interesting and important take on Cold Call in her post, We need to stop cold calling

Implementation planning

Here are the ideas we have discussed:

  1. Ask the right questions
  2. Tell your students why you are doing Cold Call
  3. Pastore’s perch and step away from the speaker
  4. Ask the question, then say the name
  5. Give adequate thinking time before taking the answer
  6. Let students write before a Cold Call
  7. Ask students to respond using full sentences
  8. Give adequate thinking time after hearing the response
  9. Manage your tell
  10. Check for active listening
  11. Build an explanation through a sequence of Cold Calls
  12. Write students’ answers on the board
  13. Cold Call regularly and in batches
  14. Change how you invite students to contribute
  15. Cold Call to check students are listening
  16. Consider tracking student participation
  17. Ask some students twice in a lesson
  18. Don’t make being Cold Called a punishment or a trap
  19. Use Warm Call
  20. Don’t completely ditch hands-up
  21. Try All Hands-Up Cold Calling

Use these ideas to complete the prioritisation exercise here.