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Ask students to raise their hands rather than shouting out contributions to enable you to call on students who contribute less often.

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Action:

  • When establishing norms for classroom discussions on the first day of class, ask students to raise their hands rather than shouting contributions.
  • Tell students that you’ll wait to see at least a certain number of hands up before calling on anyone.
  • You can call on students who have volunteered, but who typically contribute less often.
  • Explain your reason for employing this technique to students.
  • If you sometimes want them to raise their hands and other times shout shout out the answer, make clear to them when each is appropriate.

Reason:

  • Faculty expectations for students vary and there is no way for students to know the norm unless it is explicit.
  • This can help ensure that all students have the opportunity to think through a problem you pose before someone says an answer.

Ask everyone to wait for a certain number of other students to speak before speaking again to reduce a few students from monopolizing the discussion.

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Action:

  • Ask students to wait for a specific number of students to speak before speaking again. This number will depend upon the class size and you may decided to change this number during the semester.

Reason:

  • Supporting students in limiting how much they speak can help all students in your class have the opportunity to contribute to in class discussion.

Meet with oversharers to help oversharers monitor their participation.

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Action:

  • You can initiate conversations with oversharers by asking them if they can stay after class or come to office hours.
  • Express acknowledgement and appreciation for the student’s enthusiasm for the class.
  • Express concern that this reduces the opportunity for other students to participate.
  • State clearly that to create space for other voices in the classroom you would like the oversharer to contribute less in class and more after class, in office hours, over email, or whatever your preference is.
  • Discuss together what number of contributions might be appropriate. If their number is too high, point out that this does not sufficiently allow for enough other voices to enter the conversation.
  • Once you and the student agree on a number of contributions per class, state explicitly that you want them to only make that number of contributions.
  • Ask the student if they think it will be difficult to contribute only that number of times. If they anticipate that this will be very difficult for them, ask them what you could do to help them.

Reason:

  • In many cases students don’t realize that they are behaving inappropriately and it can be helpful to have a conversation with them outside of class so as to minimize embarrassment. Specific, quantified expectations will remove any confusion oversharers have regarding how much to participate.
  • Supporting students in limiting how much they speak can help all students in your class have the opportunity to contribute to in class discussion.