Picture this: it’s 9:40 a.m., you’re in class, your professor just asked a question and the room is silent. Your professor idly stands at the front of the room, waiting for someone to raise their hand and contribute, but it does not happen. Or maybe it does happen, but it’s the same student that answered the last four questions. Education is a strange place right now – nobody can agree on how to integrate artificial intelligence into the classroom, COVID-19 stunted students’ growth and students are as unwilling to participate as ever. These issues have disastrous effects on the classroom environment. So, what is the solution? Honestly, it’s cold calling.
Cold calling is when a professor calls on a student who has not volunteered to speak. Although it may feel stressful in the moment, cold calling can catalyze student growth in unique ways.
One of the benefits of cold calling is that it widens the scope of class conversation. When a professor ensures all students participate, more voices are heard. This leads to more diverse opinions and to discussions becoming more impactful. Cold calling can even result in a more equitable classroom – especially for female students. In a study by the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), researchers found that the proportion of female students who voluntarily participated in a high cold-calling classroom (82%) was 30% higher than their counterparts in a low cold-calling classroom (52%). When professors cold call, they guarantee not only that all students are heard, but also that those students are confident enough to share their perspectives even when not prompted to do so.
Cold calling can also help professors develop a deeper understanding of what their students know. In my experience, professors often receive strong participation from a handful of students. They deduce that all students are doing well, and are ultimately surprised when these students fail a test. If that professor cold called, they would understand what every student knows rather than what only a few exceptional students know. Therefore, they could plan their lessons and their tests to best satisfy the needs of each student.
Furthermore, cold calling can lead professors to nurture a student’s potential they might not have acknowledged otherwise. A study of the effects of cold calling on German middle schoolers posited that teachers may perceive students who participate infrequently as “incompetent and anxious.” This assessment is unfair. Even on the milder end, where a professor may see a student as mediocre, it severely limits the potential of quiet students. In a classroom with cold calling, a professor has a more profound understanding of their student’s abilities so that no brilliant student, whether they are quiet or loud, is left behind.
A common concern regarding cold calling is that it increases students’ anxiety. Since any student can be called on at any time, their nerves may spike. While this claim holds weight, most of that anxiety likely exists because professors fall short in their implementation of cold calling. Primarily, a professor may incorrectly integrate the strategy into their lessons and it can be seen as a punishment. For example, cold calling in bad faith is an easy way to catch a student who is not paying attention, who has not done the reading or who does not know the answer.
If professors work to properly use cold calling, students’ anxiety drastically decreases. The study regarding German middle schoolers supports this. It found that if professors frame cold calling as an invitation to collaborative thinking, it builds trust and engagement between the teacher and the student. These findings are expanded upon in a different study of undergraduate students in a chemistry lab. In short, when teachers paired cold calling with other teaching strategies, the student’s overall anxiety decreased. Thus, cold calling’s weaknesses are remedied when professors put in the work to integrate it into the classroom.
Cold calling is a phenomenal teaching strategy that could solve many problems plaguing education today. Although it may seem intimidating, when professors integrate the strategy in good faith, it can have massive benefits for students and faculty alike. If you are not convinced, I encourage you to acknowledge that “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer and to realize that when pushed to participate, you may discover that you know more than you think.
