Pause Before Giving A Direction

Why should I do it:

• Provides students an opportunity to focus and increase attending behavior
• Allows students an opportunity to think about the task at hand and prepare for instruction
• Gains students’ attention and creates a type of suspense about what will be said
• Helps the teacher to know and get a sense of who is paying attention and needs refocusing before directions are give, decreasing wasted time due to having to repeat instructions multiple times

When should I do it:

• When a student is off task, talking, goofing around, inattentive, etc
• When the class is not yet listening or attending to the teacher
• When the class needs to calm down
• When a student needs increased time to transition from one task to starting a new one
• When students are slow to process

How do I do it:

• Simply pause for a short period before giving students directions or directives, making eye contact with those that are off task or do not appear ready or to be attending to the task at hand