Incorporating the Processing Pause

I recently listened to a great podcast episode called “The Power of the Pause” from the 3 Caffeinated Coaches podcast. One of the pauses they discussed was the “processing pause.” We commonly refer to this type of pause as “think time” when using it with students. They pointed out that we don’t often give the same thinking time to adults during meetings, training sessions, coaching conversations, etc. However, it is really important to make sure we incorporate processing pauses into our interactions with the adults we support.

Some takeaways I had from this discussion:

1. Some adults take longer to process new ideas than others, so we need to make sure we build in the time they need to analyze and think about the new information that has been shared. (I am one of those adults 🙋🏻)

2. When including processing pauses, be deliberate and set norms. Otherwise, the pauses could feel forced or stifle creativity. Also, we need to consider the context and reflect on whether the occasion actually calls for slowing ourselves down in order to fully digest information.

3. There are some beneficial techniques we can use, such as giving people the agenda for a meeting ahead of time. My new boss learned quickly that I need a little more processing time than my teammates. So, if she is planning to share something big in a meeting or ask for volunteers, she will often give me a heads up before the meeting so that I have time to think it over privately before we discuss it as a group. I appreciate that so much!

Click here to check out Episode #10: Power of the Pause. I would love to hear what you think!

Comments

First Week of School

We just wrapped up our first week of school! I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know our new 5th grade students! Here are some of the activities we did to start building our classroom culture and learn more about each other: "All About Me" Google Drawing Students learned how to use some of the basic features of Google Drawings by creating a Drawing about themselves. The basic requirements were that they include their name, a picture of themselves, and text/images that describe their personalities or interests. I created an example to give them an idea of what it could look like. I used this activity last year, and I really enjoyed what my students created. However, I decided this year to give them more time to just play with and explore the tools in Google Drawing. I feel like this really paid off because students were able to discover how to use some of the tools and share with each other instead of just relying on me to show them how to use it. ...

Virtual EdTech Coaching Sessions

I'm really enjoying these virtual tech coaching sessions with teachers across our district! Here are some takeaways about coaching virtually: 🤝 Building relationships is still key to effective coaching. I try to look for things a teacher has on their desk or wall that I can see in the camera. This helps start a conversation about something meaningful to the teacher and starts our session on a positive note. ❓ Ask lots of questions rather than jumping in with a solution. I like to ask, "Can you please share your screen and show me how you would typically do/get to ____?" rather than telling them where to click right away. It helps me learn about how they navigate digital tools. 📧 Follow up the conversation with an email. I like to include a short video with a quick tutorial about something specific they talked about during the session. It helps demonstrate that I was actively listening and that I'd love to keep the conversation going and keep working together. What...

#OneNewThing: Adobe Spark

This week I tried using Adobe Spark Video for the first time. I'm enrolled in Tony Vincent's ( @tonyvincent ) Classy Videos course, and our assignment this week was to create a narrated slideshow. When you first log in to Adobe Spark , you can choose which type of product you want to create: I chose to create a video to persuade students and parents to attend our upcoming Back to School Night. Adobe Spark provides some templates for you to use, or you can choose to create your video from scratch. I used the "Promote an Idea" template for my project. Once you have chosen your template, it's time to start creating! There are some basic menus inside of the video creator. These allow you to choose things such as layout, theme, and music. You can also add narration to the slides by pressing the red button with the microphone icon at the bottom of each slide. I wrote up a brief "script" for each slide so that I wouldn't forge...

Roxi Thompson

Search This Blog