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Quiet Answers

When should I use this?
Rationale & benefits

You want to hear from your students. You want to know what they’re thinking. You want to see if your lesson “sunk in.” You want to pull out their opinions. But what if they refuse to talk?

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In this section, we introduce “Quiet Answers,” different ways for you to draw out student expression in private or even anonymous settings. Our Quiet Answer module provides teachers with the student commentary they need and may even prove to be a gateway to more traditional conversation later on.

  • Offers a quick and painless temperature reading on where the class falls in understanding
  • Provides students a non-threatening way to offer feedback or share a belief
  • Promotes an environment safe for making mistakes
  • Encourages a sense of solidarity and empowerment when peers share their struggles
  • Reduces a barrier to class participation by negating the typical hand raise
Things to keep in mind
Implementation options
Low-tech
High-tech
UDL accommodations
  • Our low-tech strategies (Fish Bowl and Exit Notes) rely on a written form of participation instead of oral. This may be a barrier to students who struggle with writing, who have fine motor skill difficulties, or who simply perceive writing as a chore.
  • To prepare against this, we offer two recommendations:

    • (1) Submissions need not be text only. They can be drawings or any other submission type your students feel comfortable with. Writing is the most common option but far from the only one!

    • (2) If possible, pair the low-tech strategy with one of our high-tech strategies like Google Docs or Padlet. Both of these platforms accept multimedia submissions (text, images, digital drawings, etc.), which may be better suited for some students. If your classroom does not have the technical accommodations to provide each student with a device, we’d recommend placing a single device somewhere in the room devoted to this end. For example, place a tablet next to your fish bowl and have it open to an empty Google Doc or Padlet.

  • Quiet Answers often require or encourage anonymity. But there are times when you need to hear from individual students. In these cases, we recommend you seek out our 
  • Don’t forget! Some of our Quiet Answer strategies are designed to be inconspicuous; we intentionally avoid drawing attention to them. But this also makes them easy to forget about. Offer your students gentle, daily reminders about them.
  • Students should be able to choose whether they want to answer questions anonymously or for attribution. Many students, even those who often appear quiet or reserved in class, want recognition for their contributions. Encourage them to sign their name whenever they feel comfortable doing so.

Student-Teacher Relationships module.

References:

Filer, D. (2010). Everyone's answering: Using technology to increase classroom participation. Nursing Education Perspectives, 31.4 (Jul/Aug 2010), 247.

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