What is cold calling?

Cold Calling is a teaching strategy which has a purpose to stimulate all students to be active thinkers and ready to respond teacher’s questions any time during the class discussion.

From this definition, a teacher uses his/her role to give the same stimulation to all students to think on the topic through questions. Teacher takes control on which students who will share to respond the question instead of only asking volunteer. By doing so, teacher is able to monitor both the learning process and students’ progress.

What are the goals?

1. To invite students to participate with discussion instead of just being exposed.
2. To make students share what they think.
3. Through cold calling, it builds students’ mental habit, because they will repeat the pattern that they have to be ready to think and respond.
4. To make each of the students to think. If they don’t think, they will not learn.
5. To evaluate teacher’s action whether to go further when the respond from the answer is correct or to offer more support if the respond from the answer is wrong.

Who is concerned?

It will be used by teachers and it will be involving the students. Teacher is the one who decide who will answer. All students are concerned to participate with the questions given.

Why Do You Wish to Do it?

Based on the goals as they become the benefits, the cold calling accommodates students’ need as the center of learning. As the center of learning, students are stimulated to be active to respond using their cognitive.

At the same time, it also helps teachers to monitor the process and evaluate the plan. It means that teachers will be able to move to the next step based on the data gained during the monitoring process or rethinking to repeat the teaching process.

How do you think you can do it?

I am optimistic that the cold calling strategy is possible to be applied by teachers. Through the cold calling, teachers are able to stimulate students to participate and engage with the lesson. Students are also stimulated to think based on the topic discussed. It is better rather than only being passive listening to the teachers. Additionally, it builds students’ confidence to share what they think in verbal way.

As the way of stimulation, teachers can do it using these models:

1. Pre-Call: this is where teachers mention the students name who will answer before sharing the explanation.
2. Batched Cold Call: this is where teachers mention a list of students to answer the questions.
3. Rehearse and Affirms: this is where teachers ask students to answer in non-verbal form. Then teachers will select students who have correct answer. After that, teachers choose those selected students and state that the answer is correct. Then, teachers ask them to share on how they could answer it.

What are the required steps ?

Here are the required steps to implement the Cold Calling:

1. Ask the Class the Questions
   Teacher asks the question to the class. Everyone has the same chance to think and respond the question. However, teacher doesn’t accept the volunteer.
2. Give thinking time
   Teacher gives students time to think. Related to the duration, it depends on the level difficulty of the questions. At the same time, teachers are also able to monitor or check the students to focused on thinking the answer.
3. Select someone to respond
   Teacher chooses or selects the which student who will answer. At this point, student is invited to share what they think even it is still in half-form thought or still unsure. If teacher focuses on the correct answer, it will demotivate the students to engage with the lesson.
4. Respond to the answers
   When the selected student shares the answer, teacher needs to respond the answer with affirmation and use probing question or the process on how student chronologically finds the answer. If the answer is incorrect, teacher can respond it by appreciating for the trial and stating that that’s not quite right before re-explaining.
5. Select another student and respond again
   Teacher asks other students related to the same question given. Teacher could ask the ones who are enthusiastic and less confident.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of cold calling?

Based on the reasons why the Cold Calling needs to be implemented, it shows the strengths of the Cold Calling. Here are the strengths:

1. It stimulates students to have one choice during the learning process, which is to participate with the lesson by responding the teacher’s question.
2. It stimulates students to develop their thinking skill because students will repeat the process to think.
3. It stimulates students to practice to be confident when delivering what they think into speaking out to others.
4. It helps teachers to get the valid data due to direct observation on how the students respond to the questions. By gaining the valid data from direct observation, teacher is able to consider whether to continue or postpone the topic.

Among the positive impacts, indeed, it has consequences, it seems it is slowing down the running process of the lesson since teachers need to observe based on the students’ respond. However, if I look at the long-term impact. It has a long-term impact which is the foundation towards the learning concept is built strongly.

Another consequence is teachers need to prepare some scenarios if students are not able to respond or they feel shy to respond, it needs teachers to motivate and stimulate the students. So, it needs capable teachers who could predict any possibility and handle the flow of the class. ***