This is a Jennifer Gonzales welcoming you to episode 223 of the cult of pedagogy podcast.

In this episode we're going to talk about what you can do when you do a check for

understanding in class and all you get is a blank stare. It's definitely happened to me. I've seen it in plenty of other classrooms and I bet

it's happened to many people listening to. You've taught something, explained it, given examples, and so on,

and then you ask the class a question, a check for understanding, and nothing happens.

You get a blank stare from the whole class.

What went wrong?

It's the kind of thing that can baffle even experience teachers.

To help us understand what might be causing it and how we can prevent it from

happening again, I've invited Blake Harvard to join me. I have been following

Blake's work for quite a few years now. He's an AP psychology teacher in Madison, Alabama and since

2016 he's been writing about the connection between cognitive science and learning on his excellent

blog The Effortful Educator.

When I decided to tackle this problem of the blank stare,

I suspected Blake would be a good person to talk to,

and he didn't disappoint.

He's written a fantastic post over on

cult of pedagogy that explores four research-based explanations for why the

blank stare happens, along with action steps teachers can take to solve those problems.

In today's episode, he's going to break it down for us.

Before I play our conversation, I'd like to thank Edgy Badges for sponsoring this episode.

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