How to Embrace Awkward Silences in Your Classroom

It is no secret that most educators hope their incoming students will be a talkative bunch. You wish that when prompting a thoughtful discussion your students would respond lively with enthusiasm. However, more likely than not, you might be met with long and painful silences in the classroom. So how do you break the silence?

If you are riddled with this challenge as I was when I started teaching, here are some tips and strategies that have helped me embrace silence in the classroom.

Awkward silence can be golden. 

Let’s face it, silence can be awkward for all parties in the room. Silence, however, may be a good sign in a classroom. It could mean that your students are thinking, processing, and compartmentalizing the information that was shared. Silence is a natural process towards critical thinking, which is what we ultimately strive to achieve with instruction. When a complex concept is presented, your students may need time to think deeply before knowing how to answer. This time could take 5 seconds, or the full duration of your live session. This quiet is what I call, ‘golden silence.’ 

3 Steps to Breaking the Silence

Step 1: Count to five (in your head). 

When posing a question that requires student responses, take a mental pause before moving forward with your next point. Counting to five in your head provides the necessary room and time for your students to gather their thoughts before responding. 

While you pause for the count of five, scan the room for nonverbal signals. Are your students furrowing their eyebrows, making the ‘hmm’ face? Looking confused? Searching frantically? Or just distracted and unengaged? Depending on the topic, it may take your students more than 5 seconds to properly process and develop a response.

Step 2: Re-explain and/or show in a different way. 

If silence persists longer than you expected and your students continue to look perplexed, you may need to provide examples and modeling, or frame the concept in a different way. However, do not give up too easily by providing the answers. This is the perfect moment to embrace that golden silence. 

Revisit the same question at the end of class, leaving your students with enough time to thoroughly make sense of the prompt. Have your students show and explain their thought process through different modalities - via chat, break out rooms, annotation, etc. 

Step 3: Think-Pair-Share

One sure way to never be met with awkward silences is to intentionally provide your students with time to process through the Think-Pair-Share (TPS) activity. TPS is simple: give your students time to think individually (think), then put them into breakout rooms of 2-3 students for them to share with each other (pair); then bring the full discussion together as a whole class (share). 

In Conclusion...

Embracing silence can be uncomfortable for even the most seasoned instructor. It takes time and practice to become fully comfortable, so here is my last tip. Bring some humility and introduce the awkward elephant in the room (which is your uneasiness) - that will be sure to break the silence and bring some smiles.

Happy teaching!