Jockeying, backchanneling, listening

"How to teach in an age on distraction) (Chronicle of Higher Education) may have some nuggets for you. It had some for me:

"But there is another way to respond to students who complain that they need more stimulation than class conversation can provide. It is to tell them that if they have a moment of boredom, it means that something is being asked of them: They must go inward and draw upon their imaginative life. We can tell them what we now know to be true: A moment of boredom is an opportunity for new thinking. But it can be short-circuited if you go to the web.

If boredom happens in a classroom, rather than competing for student attention with ever-more extravagant technological fireworks, we should encourage students to stay with their moment of silence or distraction. We can try to build their confidence that such moments — where you stay with your thoughts — have a payoff. They give time to engage with yourself and with the subject. We can present classrooms as places where you can encounter boredom and "walk" toward its challenges."