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Opportunities to Respond (OTR)


As part of some reading lately relating to "great teachers" I came across an acronym I hadn't seen before, OTR. As per usual my interest was piqued and off I went down the rabbit hole to learn what these OTRs were.

What are OTRs?

OTR stands of Opportunities to Respond. OTRs therefore are opportunities for students to respond  to questions, tasks or demands. Some literature emphasises that the responses must be correct while other papers focus on the fact that feedback on responses must be given. Examples of OTRs might include
  • an individual responding to a teacher prompt
  • responding verbally in a group (choral response)
  • responding via white board or holding up cards
  • responding by using some form of digital classroom response system
  • responding to peers in group work
A subset of OTRs is TD-OTRs which are teacher directed opportunities to respond. Personally I love getting students talking to each other in class so I like the idea of considering OTRs that are not directed by the teacher.

Why Worry about providing OTRs?

Providing students with frequent opportunities to respond appears to have positive impacts on students including
  • improved performance
  • improved behaviour
  • increased task engagement

OTRs in Higher Education

A lot of the literature seems to focus on young kids. The opportunities to respond that are spoken about are several times a minute. I'm teaching in a higher education setting. I can't imaginary students responses if I started buzzing there with 5 questions per minute. However I can see that there might be a benefit to me thinking about increasing OTRs from whatever baseline they are at now. This could be something to think about when planning lectures. I already use plenty of classroom response systems in lectures. I am a fan of Kahoot and Quizizz in particular and do feel that they have a good impact on engagement and learning.  Rethinking group work in terms of increasing OTRs might provide a new focus on my thinking about it.


MacSuga-Gage, A. S. & Simonsen, B., 2015. Examining the Effects of Teacher-Directed Opportunites to Respond on Student Outcomes: A Systematics Review of the Literature. Education and Treatment of Children, 38(2).

Moore Partin, T. C. et al., 2010. UsingTeacher Praise and Opportunities to Respond to Promote Appropriate Student Behaviour. Preventing School Failure, 54(3).

Sayeski, K. L. et al., 2017. The Role of Practice and Feedback for Developing Teacher Candidate's Opportunities to Respond Expertise.Teacher Education and Special Education, 1(18).


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