Students must have uninterrupted periods of time to process information, to reflect on what has been said, observed, or done, and to consider what their personal responses will be. After at least three seconds of uninterrupted silence, a significant number of positive outcomes occur for students and teachers. Students are more effective in completing cognitive tasks in particular situations. The teacher's job is to manage and guide what occurs prior to and immediately following each period of silence so that the processing that needs to occur is completed. Eight categories of periods of silence name the place they occur or the primary function the silences perform during conversations and discussions: (1) post-teacher question wait-time; (2) within-student's response pause-time; (3) post-student's response wait-time; (4) student pause-time; (5) teacher pause-time; (6) within-teacher presentation pause-time; (7) student task-completion work-time; and (8) impact pause-time. Contians 8 references. (Author/CK)