I feel like I had a great pre-service education at Wartburg College. My recent graduate training in curriculum and instructional technology at Iowa State University was outstanding, too. The education department faculty that mentored me at both institutions were truly dedicated to the profession and often did an excellent job "walking the walk" in addition to "talking the talk."

Today, I came across a video of a professor at Iowa State who really seems to value the importace of metacognition which I also blogged about several weeks ago. While I never had Dr. Mike Clough as an instructor, his work has piqued my interest. It is well worth eight minutes of your time to watch the video linked on this page as he models metacognition and wait time for a small group of future science educators.

Reflecting upon my own practice, I'm most likely too impatient when it comes to soliciting students' thoughts in a large group setting. Seeing it through the lens of metacognition and the quest towards better understaning students misconceptions shed a new light on its importance. A simple tweak to this aspect of instruction seems like it has the potential to pay big dividends.

How would you rate your regular use of wait time?