Hitting Pause: Strategies for Effective Classroom Delivery

In this workshop, we explore a teaching strategy of Hitting Pause during classroom instruction. Hitting pause is a method of incorporating student introspection, contemplation and scrutiny of educational material during a class. As a learning circle we explore these methods and share our experiences and insights with fellow educators. Our goal is threefold. First, we will introduce the idea of breaking a traditional classes with pauses and present the scientific evidence supporting the usefulness of this strategy for student self-reflection. Second, we will share pausing strategies that we have gleaned from the book Hitting Pause by Gail Taylor Rice, as well as from our own experiences in diverse classroom environments, including hybrid, online, Asynchronous session online, and face-to-face. Finally, we will implement several pauses into our presentation to demonstrate the effectiveness of these strategies in a practical way. Our hope is that our audience will be able to leave our workshop with a better understanding of how pausing a class can enhance classroom delivery and improve student learning outcomes