Meaningful Conversations & Wait Time

     “Under a wide variety of instructional situations and levels ranging from first grade through university level, from classrooms to museum and business settings [and doctors' offices], the quality of discourse can be markedly improved by increasing to 3 seconds or longer the average wait times used by teachers after a question and after a response. These pauses are ordinarily so brief, 1 second or less on the average, that an adequate exchange of ideas and the nurturing of new ideas cannot take place. Wait time, however, is just another technique if one does not understand why fostering more productive exchanges among us all is so important. Gwen Frostic, a poet and artist, tells us in her book Beyond Time

We must create a great change
in human direction –
an understanding
of the interdependency
by which the universe evolves
Know
– that knowing –
is the underlying foundation
for the life we must develop. …
We cannot leave it to the scientists –
nor any form of government –
each individual
must fuse a philosophy
with a plan of action.

     Wait time provides a context in which teachers and students [doctors and patients] may dialogue together in the service of that purpose.”
       Rowe MB. Wait Time: Slowing Down May Be a Way of Speeding Up. Journal of Teacher Education 1986; 11(1): 38-43.

     See also: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/04/insight-dialogue-guidelines-for-kinder.html

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