The Real, Genuine Teacher

            As a classroom teacher I always wanted to control the teaching/learning atmosphere as much as possible. I would arrange the room, use the media well, and ensure that the walls had appropriate things hung on them. I worked under the belief that if the physical atmosphere was well managed then both the teaching and the learning would be elevated.

            Teaching as a missionary brings a whole new dimension to the teaching atmosphere because a missionary can rarely control the physical aspect of it. You are invited into someone's home and you just go with what is there. Here are 3 experiences I had last week. The first was in the evening. A mother and her teen-age son are studying with us. We went for a lesson and she was trying to get dinner ready, keep her other 3 younger daughters under control, keep the television off or at least keep the volume down, answer the phone, and be engaged in the lesson. Not an ideal situation.

            That was followed by a lesson with a single man who lives in a hotel. We taught him in the lobby of the hotel. There were 2 chairs in the whole lobby. He sat in one, I in the other, and the two young missionaries stood. People were coming in and out, the desk clerk was right by us and there was the usual commotion associated with a public place. Again, not ideal.

            Two days later we went at 10 a.m. to a home to teach a single woman. She lives in a 3-story, 6-unit building, the type that are so common in these parts. She couldn’t invite us in because one of her roommates had started drinking earlier in the morning and was well into his first six pack of the day and not in a good mood. So we stood on the porch and taught – we in our white shirts and ties, she in her bathrobe. We competed with her phone, the trash trucks, a fire engine, lots of neighbors flowing in and out of the building, and the general noise of the street. Far, far from the ideal.

            All three of these situations would never be considered excellent teaching venues, but here is what happened. The first woman and her son were on their fourth discussion and it went well. She shared with us some experiences from her life where she felt the Spirit but didn’t know what it was that kept guiding her towards better things. We helped her see what it was and she was filled with the Spirit again. The second man had already committed to baptism and this was a little tune up lesson for him. He accepted it very well. He was edified as we all were. The third woman was very agreeable to the message, accepted a Book of Mormon, committed to read it each night, and invited us back.

            What made these lessons come alive and overcome very poor ‘classroom’ set ups? Of course, it was the presence of the Holy Ghost. Nothing makes teaching too difficult for Him. When we pray and invite His presence, real teaching and learning occurs no matter what the setting and situation. Now, what will happen with these people and their relationship to the church only time and experience will tell. But I do know that on each of those particular occasions they were given the best opportunity to hear and accept the message because of the presence and active involvement of the Spirit in the teaching process 

Seasoning Your Lesson with Technology

The proliferation of machinery and electronic gadgetry in and around the classroom has been a real blessing in teaching and learning. I can remember using a mimeograph machine to make multiple copies of something for the whole class; also saving my nickels to go to the library because they had the only copy machine around and if I wanted something copied out of a book for my own use they charged me a nickel a page. I've used record players, filmstrips, cassette tapes, slide projectors, and 16mm films in the classroom. My personal favorite was/is the overhead projector. They were all good in their day but there was a high level of clunkiness involved with most of them (looking at it from our current vantage point).

Today I can use projectors that work with wireless wonder alongside my computer, tablet, or phone. I have PowerPoint and Keynote and other programs that make presentations come alive with an endless variety of typefaces and animation. This is a big step forward and, all in all, a boost to what we as teachers do. I love using maps in class and can now bring up an endless stream of maps of everything and every place.

However (that's just a glorified 'but' and you could probably see it coming), these things have to be used with caution and restraint. I constantly talk to students before and after classes I visit and I hear some variation of this common refrain: "I'm so sick of presentations on the screen". Last summer I taught at a conference for 4 days and after the second day's class a young woman came to me and said "I must thank you". She was urgent and sincere. "Thanks for not using any presentations on the screen. Thanks for talking with us and not turning your whole lesson over to the screen."

Here is my list of cautions and concerns about the over-use of screen technology:
1. Just because it is available doesn't mean you need to use it all the time.
2. If you spend more time creating your screen presentation than the rest of your lesson, it's too much
3. If you find yourself skipping over slides during your class presentation and muttering "we don't need this one, we'll skip this one," then you've made too many and it has become intrusive.
4. If you put up large chunks of text and have students read them aloud you are putting everyone to sleep.
5. If you have become so reliant on technology that you can't teach without it then you probably need to refocus your priorities.

Technology has a tendency to go bad and not work for us. Even old technology can hold us in its grip. One summer I taught at a conference with a colleague and we were checking out our room assignments prior to students coming in. As we walked into his room he looked around and immediately panicked - there was no piano. He played and sang as part of his teaching (and was really good at it) so when he realized there was no piano he said "I can't teach here". I said "You are a teacher - what do you mean you can't teach here?". "Without a piano I simply can't teach." Well, he had become the slave of that level of technology and it hampered his teaching.

Here is another extreme example. Once I was supposed to go to a training meeting where some new materials were being introduced. I was excited to go but was unable to at the last minute, so the next day I called some colleagues to see what I missed. All of them were envious that I had missed the meeting. Here's what happened: the presenter distributed the material, about 80 pages worth, then proceeded to put each page up on the screen - the same pages that everyone had in their hand - and have someone read aloud what was up there. He did that for almost all of the 80 pages and it took about 3 hours. They said that he would occasionally comment about the importance of a particular page or passage, but mostly it was just a reading.

That is bad training and that is poor teaching. When I was in high school there was a group of students that were the Audio Visual guys - the AV crew. They were the ones to bring a movie projector to a classroom and set it up and make sure it ran. Today, everyone is their own AV crew but when you allow that assignment to become bigger than your teaching assignment something has gone wrong. Over-reliance on technology puts it between us and the students, or between the material and the students. It is as though we have moved the screen (or the piano) to the front and moved the teacher to the background. The teacher needs to be a presence in the classroom, not merely an AV accessory.

Technology is just seasoning, just spice. It should enhance, not dominate the lesson. Just as a cook periodically tastes the soup as it is simmering to know if the taste is right, we should do the same on a regular basis. Is my technology usage taking over the class or is it used discreetly enough that it really adds to the mix? Am I wise enough to just use one map quickly to illustrate a point, or one quote to do the same? Most people think that if one quote is good then 10 are better. Today's free tip: successive quotes on the same subject are not better than one good one that hits the point.

Use technology wisely. Be grateful for it and employ it well but don't let it take center stage. Let it enhance the lesson, but don't let it overwhelm you and the students.

Are You Sure You Covered the Topic?

It is satisfying at the end of a class to sit back and think how well I covered the material for the students. Teachers love to cover things and to say things like "we covered that really well in class today and the students are all ready for the test." I think we feel victorious when we can acknowledge that our coverage was great.

But here is the problem with that thought: we really don't cover much of anything and to continue to think we do leads us to a place where we are not teaching well. We tend to pull back and soften our teaching because we feel so confident in our coverage.

For example, I've read the New Testament multiple times and feel comfortable that I understand what it says about the life of Christ. Beyond the New Testament I have in my bookcase many books about the life of Christ.  There are well over 3000 pages of material on His life written by men who have studied and know much more than I do.  I've read those books. Is it safe for me to say that I have now 'covered' the life of Christ in my personal study? Not by a long shot.  In another year, or two, or five, someone will publish another book about His life and there will be more to know. Indeed, the very last verse of the Gospel of John says that if all that Jesus did was written down, "I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

Why does the idea of coverage cause us to not teach well? Because it leads us as teachers to stop asking questions which results in no thinking, just mechanical teaching. When you believe that you have written a lesson plan that covers the material for the day, then your thinking usually stops. Even if you think the lesson does what it should do, how do you react when a student raises a question that you had never even thought of ? What do you do when a student gives a wonderful answer to one of your questions but it is an answer that you never considered? Suddenly, there is more to cover.

I read an essay once about the proper way to travel. The author said that most people are satisfied to quickly see the thing they came to see and then leave, grateful that they can now say "I've seen the Grand Canyon" or whatever it was. His suggestion was that unless you spend some time with something and look at it from multiple angles you've never really seen it.

We went to Mt. Rushmore with some friends a few years back. We arrived in the area very late in the afternoon and by the time we got to the monument it was almost dark. We saw what we could see with the remaining light and then watched as the faces on the mountain were artificially illuminated. It was very impressive but we all decided to come back the next day and see it in the sunlight, which we did. It looked quite different and I was grateful that we saw it in another way. We were able to hike around the area and experience more and come to understand it better with more time.

We could have been satisfied with the night time visit and could have honestly said that we had seen it. But to see more of it differently gave me another experience, for which I was grateful.

So it is in the classroom. You can teach a lesson and feel like you've adequately covered things, or you can understand that coverage is an illusion.

So if you can't honestly cover things what then can you do? You can 'expose' your students to new ideas and thoughts. You can 'address' the ideas found in the material for the day.  To address means "to direct to the attention of" or "to deal with or discuss". That's what I want my students to do, to learn to deal with things, to think and to act and to make responsible and valid judgments about issues. They will never learn to do that if I'm busy covering things for them.

Rather than having you the teacher try to cover things, how about this thought: don't try to cover things; rather, seek to have your students 'uncover' some of the material each day, so that they can learn for themselves.

Living and Teaching with Stress

This morning I was reminded of a dinner my wife and I went to with another couple some years ago. This was a young couple, newly wed maybe 2-3 years and not yet with any children.  During the course of the evening the husband made this statement: "Our goal is to live a stress-free life." I wasn't sure I heard him correctly so I asked him to repeat the statement, which he did, word for word. My wife and I kept looking quizzically at each other, as in "Did he really say that?  Did he mean it?" I asked him to explain what he meant by that and he said that their goal was to so order their lives as to avoid any and all stress and to just be able to glide along from day to day, happy, smiling, and content.

I thought it was a teaching opportunity so I asked him if he knew that the very building we were in stood because of stress. The various pieces of wood that made up the walls and the roof relied on being joined to one another in such a way that the stress caused by the weight and the angles actually brought them together and caused for a very strong structure. If the stress was removed then there would be just a pile of lumber - no stress but nothing standing. The stress was necessary for the building to stand.

How would you like to have a stress-free teaching experience?  The students file in, smiling, on time. They sit in order and are prompt in their questions and responses. The each have a perpetually good attitude and are eager to learn. They never speak out of turn and are uniformly polite to the teacher and to their classmates.  Prior to class you have all the time you need to prepare your lesson and after class plenty of time with students and their work. All of your equipment works perfectly. Would you love that? I don't think I would for more than a day or two. There is no stress, no pushing and pulling against something that is so necessary to wake us up and cause us to learn. It would be like flying a kite with no wind, like trying to sail a ship in the doldrums.

Teachers and students need something to lean into. That's why Nephi says that we must "press forward" as we move towards perfection.  He could have said "walk forward" or "move forward". But he uses the verb "press" which indicates that there will always be some kind of opposition or stress as we move towards good things.  That includes teaching and learning.

I've found that most of my stress doesn't happen in the classroom, during class. Being with the students is the fun part. But if I need copies and the copy machine doesn't work, that could be stressful. If the projector bulb is burned out and there is no replacement because someone (probably me) forgot to get one, things could get a little shaky. If I run out of time to prepare and have to enter class feeling unprepared and not quite ready that could cause me to be a little stressed. It is all of the factors around the classroom that seem to do it for me.

So here is how I have learned to handle it: if it is a time issue I take full responsibility for it.  All of us have all the time there is. Sometimes we just misuse it. It is counter productive to blame our lack of time on anything else. To enter class unprepared is my mistake and I have to muddle through and do better next time. If the machinery is down and out and I can't get the copies I need or show the video clip that I want to show, well that's just how it goes. If I'm a teacher, I better be able to teach without copies and projectors. They are nice but not necessary. What's necessary is me, the students and the textbook. And if things really go sideways, I have learned to say "how fascinating" and forge ahead. Feel free to use that phrase. I learned it from someone else and now pass it to you. You'll feel a lot better if you do.

You Know It, But Can They Feel It?

When you are a teacher, everyone knows what you do, right?  You teach!  Everyone has a mental picture of a teacher standing in front of his classroom talking, pacing, writing on the board, grading papers, peering over the tops of his glasses, etc.  Those are standard actions of a teacher in his habitat.

But beyond the actions, what are you trying to a accomplish?  What is your goal?  At the end of the day, how will you know if you were successful?

Below is a quote from Dr. Rolf Kerr (Google him - highly successful and influential educator). Notice the 4 things that he says needs to happen in an educational exchange:

"The acquisition of knowledge is merely the first level of learning. This must be followed by our students’ coming to a clear understanding of that which they have come to know. Even knowledge with understanding is not enough. Those we serve must rise to a level of belief that makes learning meaningful and operable in their lives. They must recognize that what they have come to know, what they have come to understand, and what they have come to believe should change their lives, bringing happiness and the blessings of heaven in this life and through the eternities to come."

Think about the relationship of those 4 things.  If we are studying the Gettysburg Address and I teach about the context of when and where it was delivered, then have my students memorize it, I can probably say they know it.  But I also want them to understand it, so we delve deeper and come to see the motivations and reasons for its delivery.  At the end of a class like that you may be tempted to think your job is finished.  "They know it and understand it."  But tomorrow you could do similar things with the Communist Manifesto and then all that your students have is knowledge of two documents without the ability to differentiate between them.  The know and understand them equally well.  

But I want this knowledge to change their lives in some way, or else it is just knowledge stored away for the test.  In order for the change to happen a student needs to be given the opportunity to believe - believe in the goodness or badness of a thing.  I want them to see it, know it understand it, then weigh it out and come to believe it or discard it..  Only in that way will there be enough motivation to make a change.

When I watch teachers teach I see as one of the consistently weakest parts the ability to help students believe something.  I see lots of really good ways to help them get the content and the context into their minds.  I see very creative ways to help them understand what they are studying.  What I see far less is an invitation to believe something, and this is what I think is the missing ingredient: passion for the subject.  

My 6th grade teacher let us all make wooden rifles to teach us about some aspect of American History.  I've forgotten the reason for doing so but I have never forgotten his excitement and urging as he watched us plan and create our little masterpieces.  And I still have a great love for American History.  I had a high school geometry teacher who made angles seem alive and exciting, and......I still love people who love geometry.  I remember different religion teachers who made the scriptures come so alive that I couldn't wait to dig in deeper on my own.  These and others were all teachers filled with passion for their subject.  They weren't detached and they weren't haltingly cool.  They loved what they did and they knew I would too if I would dive in and start to absorb it.  My life has been changed and enriched by encounters with great literature because of teachers (and my mother) who loved literature. Finally, understanding the scriptures has changed and improved my life forever and it was passionate and talented teachers (and my father) who lit the fire.

I see a lot of wonderful technicians in the classroom but some days I long for passion.  I picture a teacher grabbing a student, staring intently at them and bubbling forth with "This is true - it will change your life - believe me!"  (I never suggest the grabbing part, but I do suggest the bubbling forth part).  Sometimes passion is loud and demonstrative, sometimes quiet and evocative, but it is always real, not feigned.  However you feel it and express it, you'll have a better teaching experience - and your students will have a better learning experience - if you interject some of it into your lessons.

The Smartest Student in the World

In many classes I've taught, I've had the same student that you have had in some of your classes.  I've had The Smartest Student In The World.  This student is generally bright and engaging and very, very willing to answer every question and offer a comment on every situation.  I actually love this student because he is engaged, thinking, and willing to dive into the work of learning. Often it is a blessing to have him because if the class lags a little I can just nod in his direction and he will start talking.  The downside of his presence is that he will continue to talk and work his way into things when others want to, and need to (by the way, this student shows up in youth, young adult, and adult classes - he is everywhere). So how do you help this student learn within the context of a whole classroom of students, all of whom need to learn?  How do you help without killing his enthusiasm? Here are some observations

Many times I have put a student on "comment restriction".  Sometimes I pull him aside before class and say, "You make so many excellent and useful comments but I have 20 other students who also need to talk, so I'm giving you room to make just 3 comments during this class period - make them count."   Most take that seriously and I can see them measuring their thoughts and metering out their comments.  I think it makes for better comments.  Once they hit 3 comments I don't call on them anymore and they understand why.  Other times I don't tell the student up front, I just mentally keep track and when he hits 3 comments I stop calling on him.  If he approaches me after class and asks why I didn't call on him, I explain the restriction rule and thank him for his willingness, but help him see the need to create space for others.  I've never had a student get mad about it.  They all seem to get it and most laugh as they realize the truth of it.

You as the teacher are not obligated to call on every person who asks to be recognized.  I want to include all voices so I pick those to speak.  And I don't feel bound by who had their hand up first.  This is not a 'pull a number at Baskin Robbins and wait confidently for your turn' experience so I am free to call on whomever I want - whomever I think will add to the discussion.  Sometimes I look at a student who is very hesitant and gently say "Did you have your hand up?"  When they say "No" I follow with "But did you want to have your hand up?"  More often than not they will say yes and then offer something.  That gets more voices in the mix.

Here are two good phrases to have in your back pocket - "I see a lot of the same hands up - I'd like to hear from people who have not yet spoken".  That works.  And this one - "Let's just take one more comment and move on." 

I love to ask students for personal experiences that illustrate the point we are trying to make.  They are generally willing to share such stories, but after about 2 stories, we don't need anymore illustration.  It just becomes a redundancy that stops the discussion from moving forward, so I'll simply say "This is the last story we need".  And I like to emphasize that we need personal stories, not hearsay stories.  So when a student says "This happened to my uncle's neighbor's boss's son", I'm obligated to cut him off - with kindness of course.

Remember that participation is not the goal - it is a means to an end.  The end is learning, which is enhanced by stirring things up in the minds of the students. More voices help the mix so you can't let The Smartest Student in the World - or his partners - dominate and you at least have to offer the quieter students a chance to join in.  And if you can do it in a fun way it works a lot better.

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You Can Talk, but Can You Converse?

In recent years there has been a welcomed trend towards inviting students to do more in their own learning.  This is a very good thing as mental immobility rarely results in learning.  But as with all trends that feel good, we tend to keep pushing it until we go past the point of usefulness and enter into something just as weak as the thing we are trying to correct.  In this case, if we require more and more of students, the false corollary is that we need to require less and less of teachers.  You can see that the end of that thinking is for teachers to be deemed unnecessary (some with little understanding would cheer that result).  However, to eliminate the teacher weakens the class as much as having a teacher who does everything and asks nothing of students. 

So what is the real value of having a teacher in the class?  It is the experience, the wisdom, and the voice.  Students can replicate everything that happens in a class except hear the voice of the teacher.  They can read the text on their own, organize their own little study groups and talk things out.  They can make up review sheets and give each other little quizzes and tests.  The only thing they cannot do on their own is hear the voice of the teacher and get her point of view and her experience and her synthesis of a situation.  

Years ago a colleague made this comment, almost in passing: "Great teaching is a great conversation with your students."  I liked it then and agree with it more now.  This is a place where great learning can occur. 

What makes great conversation (as opposed to hanging out and talking about nothing)?  It is friends sitting around talking about things that matter.  They may or may not come to a conclusion but interest is stirred and thinking ensues.  Some of the most meaningful conversations I have ever had have been in a class, with students. We are friends, and the topics before us are meaningful.

Just a few things are necessary to begin a great classroom conversation. It is almost always initiated by a teacher leading the class in a purposeful direction.  It generally starts with a real question or a real problem that needs a solution. It should be clearly understood that effective classroom conversations are more than just one teacher and one student talking.  There needs to be that but there also needs to be student to student talk. When these elements are present there can be real discussions.

It took a long time in my marriage for my wife and I to figure out our conversational patterns.  When she asks me a question, I rarely respond quickly.  I pause a lot because I want to respond well.  But in the early days she interpreted my silence as a sign for her to say something else.  We just had to work out the details of when we are ready to speak because I don't like being cut off in the middle of an idea, even as I am muddling my way through it.  She doesn't either.  Neither do you, so if you want a great classroom conversation, allow students to muddle their way through.

I have sort of a deliberate pace to my speaking and I don't like someone to steal the punch line of a joke or to complete my sentences before I get to them because of that pacing.  Do you?  Probably not.  Allow your students the same courtesy.

The inherent danger of a conversation is that it tends to drift quite easily.  If you like your students and feel at ease in the gentle banter that accompanies such friendship then you really have to guard against such a drift. Remember that the purpose of a discussion is not simply to get students talking.  The fact that they are talking is no accomplishment at all.  The purpose is to come to an understanding of a question or problem.  The purpose is to counsel together and mutually arrive at a place where we see clearer. The teacher needs to be one voice in the room but not the only voice and perhaps not even the dominant voice.  

So converse with students and make it enjoyable.  Let them hear your voice, and position yourself to want to hear their voices.  In the next few posts there will be some ideas for helping accomplish that.

The Big Question

             The question I am asked most frequently about teaching is this one: “How do I come up with good questions to use in the classroom?”  This is a critical skill for a teacher to have because, “To ask and answer questions is at the heart of all learning and all teaching” (President Henry B. Eyring).  It would seem a simple thing to ask a question in class, and it is if you aren’t too particular about what follows. If, however, you want to stir up thinking and created a lively learning atmosphere in your classroom, you will need to learn how to craft excellent questions.

            When a person tells me about their inability to come up with great questions, my first response is always the same: “You can’t come up with good classroom questions because you don’t ask good questions as you read the material in preparation for the class.  You simply read the material.”  Most people read a text just to read it.  A teacher needs to read it and think about how to use it in class.  I find that the most effective way to do that is to ask questions of the text as I read it.  Here are 3 examples:

1.      I remember the first time I read the Iliad as an adult (this did not happen as I read it in high school because I just sort of faked my way through it).  I was struck with the opening line: “Sing O Goddess, the anger of Achilles…”  Why was he so angry?  How did his anger reach a point where it caused multiple deaths (which the line goes on to say)?  Why is this the very opening line of the story?  I was full of questions from just those seven words and I read awaiting the answers from the text.  Those are questions that could launch a discussion.

2.      This summer I read a book entitled “Empire of the Summer Moon” about the Comanche nation in North America.  For 150-200 years, up to about 1880, they were the undisputed rulers of the great middle section of the continent, from Texas, and New Mexico on the south up through Kansas and Nebraska.  They were fierce warriors, incredible horsemen, and ruled their territory.  Their power kept the Spaniards from moving further north from Mexico and the French from moving west out of the New Orleans area.  Both groups wanted to keep colonizing but were bottled up by the Comanche protecting their lands.  As I discovered that insight in the text, I started asking questions:  how did that help or hinder further migrations by different people?  What caused the demise of their power and did that hasten migration?  How different would America be today if the French had colonized much further west, or the Spaniards farther to the north?   Can you see how questions like that could really enable discussion?

3.      When I read the scriptures I am full of questions.  Recently I was reading in Luke 17 and found this in verse 5: “Lord, increase our faith” and immediately I wondered what is the way to increase faith?  So I read the subsequent verses slowly and found that in 6-10 He uses a story to outline one way and in verses 11-19 He shares a second way to do it.  I would have never seen that if I had not asked a question of the text.

If you struggle to come up with good questions try doing this – have a conversation

with the text as you read through it.  The three examples above all could have just been an ‘ooh and ah’ moment in the reading but I asked questions and was stirred up.  Be full of wonder.  Think deeply.  Probe and push and pull.  The questions that bubble up as you read can be turned into good questions that you can ask your students in class.

      I’m going to devote the next couple of posts to the art of asking questions, both how to do it and how not to do it.

Are you sure you didn't want to be an Architect?

What do you think of this sentence: “The teacher is the architect of the learning experience”?  I like it a lot.  It’s been with me so long that I can’t recall if I thought of it (maybe) or I read or heard it somewhere (more likely).  Either way, it expresses a truth about the classroom and the teaching/learning dynamic. 

An architect has a vision, then commits that vision into detail on paper, and finally directs the execution of the vision.  What he doesn't do is all of the work.  There are lots of people down the line that labor in realization of the vision, but the vision and the details begin with him. 

A great teacher begins with a vision of student learning (not teacher performance) over the course of the term and for each daily lesson.  The vision is “what will my students learn” and the details are “how will they learn it.”  Start with a plan, fill in the details, and then be prepared to modify along the way, if the occasion calls for it.  You’re the architect; you get to pick the materials to use and the quantity.  For example, student participation is one of the materials to aid in the learning process.  It is not the final product.  Don’t get fooled into thinking that just because students are participating that they are learning.  They may or may not be, but if you’re not careful, you’ll perceive participation as an end, not as a means to an end.  The end we want is learning, and participation is useful because it opens up thinking and thinking causes learning.  So we love to see hands go up to respond, but here is a truth that is hard to grasp: not everyone that raises a hand needs to be called on.  If I ask a question and five hands go up I won’t necessarily call on all of them and I generally won’t do it in the order they raised their hands.  If the last hand up is a student who doesn't talk much, that’s the first person I call on.  She needs to be heard and a variety of voices generally makes for a better class.  And if I think that after 1-2 comments we have stirred the pot successfully and people are thinking, then I move on because as the architect of the learning experience, I get to select the materials (in this case, participation) and the quantity (how many students I call on).

You might assume that students will be offended if they are not called on, but here is another truth: when you raise your hand it is a sign that you have had some thoughts, that you have been stirred up sufficiently so that you want to participate.  Whether you vocalize it or not you still have had the experience of thinking and that enhances learning.  And if a student really has something to say that needs resolution, she will let me know by her persistence and she will get her say.

Great teaching is not delivering a boatload of new facts.  It is the ability to stir things up in the minds of students so that they think and begin to see things in ways that maybe they hadn't before and thus learn.  When the Savior taught the two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) He expounded all things unto them, spent time with them, and then left, leaving them to ponder and wonder and grow in learning.  He may not have answered all of their questions but He stirred them by leaving some things unsaid.  

It takes a classroom architect with vision and skill to make that happen in a great teaching way that leads to great learning.