This topic has been buzzing through my mind for awhile now. I have four to six students per class who will raise their hands to participate pretty much regardless of what information I ask the class to volunteer. Many of these confident volunteers tend to get the questions right while others are okay with publicly working through a question. This is great and I am grateful to these students who I know I can always count on to participate and stave off the empty stares.
However, I have this crazy dedication to the other 4/5 of the class who either rarely volunteer or are off task. To encourage the other students to participate, I have been using a few approaches. First, I have literally said, "thank you for helping us out so much already, but I would like to hear from someone new." Half of the time the overzealous students accept this, but increasingly, students who are quick to raise their hand are also quick to disengage when not called upon. My co-teacher and I have underscored the point that we really appreciate them having answered as much as they did, but we need to make sure everyone understands as well as they do. We have also highlighted the fact that we will look for another student for this question, but may call on them for another question.
Still, we have been met with dramatic reactions in which students claim they will not participate and then focus on something else at their desk. I have also tried a bit of "cold calling," a technique in Lemov's Teach Like a Champion, but have met some resistance to this approach. This technique is purported to be the best by Lemov so there must be something to it. I found this video displaying the "cold calling" technique, but this raises more questions, such as why are they standing.
I want to bring the rest of the class to the participation level of these few instead of unwittingly giving negative reinforcement to the few of those who actively participate. I welcome all suggestions on better strategies or approaches on how better to do as the title suggests, involve new students without losing the interest/engagement of those who are already raising their hands.
I enjoyed the stick strategy used by the teacher at Digital Harbor...everyone knew that eventually they would get called on. I also like when students call on each other...This tends to make the conversation a little more playful. For students who don't want to speak as often, there is always the strategy of having them write their responses. Let's keep looking for other possibilities. I think you are on the right track to require everyone to participate in some way and to honor each student's contributions.
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