It happens to us all, we are done with everything planned for the class and finish the lesson with a statement like, "Thank you everyone, class is over." You would prefer to close class in a way that feels organic and encourages students to remember the topics that were covered during the class but asking if anyone has any questions usually results in silence.
Why Is Closing Class Important? The Recency Effect is the principle that the most recently presented items or experiences will most likely be remembered best. This means that the things that happen at the end of class will be the things that students remember most clearly. To leverage this principle an instructor can close class with a short activity that quickly reviews the information from the whole of the lesson. Activities for closing class do not have to be lengthy, all the activities listed here take less than 10 minutes. Consider Trying These Closing Activities Closing class can serve several key purposes, gauging student understanding, emphasizing key information and/or correcting misunderstandings. Gauging Student Understanding Quick Quiz Give a short quiz using technologies like Kahoot, Quizzizz, Socrative, Go Formative or Google Forms. Or the quiz can be done without technology by asking students simple questions and having them respond with a hand gesture such as holding up a certain number of fingers or a thumbs up/thumbs down. Composing Questions Have students write quiz questions about the lesson. These questions can be used for future class quizzes or if time allows in the class, have students exchange questions and answer the questions they received. Exit Ticket Ask students to write their name, what they learned, and any lingering questions on a blank card. Before they leave class, collect the cards. Exit Ticket Variation Ask students to write their name on a card and on their way out deposit their cards in a pile labeled either "Got It," "More Practice, Please," or "I Need Some Help!" They place their card based on whichever label best represents their feeling about the information from class Plus Delta Students receive two post it notes, they write one thing that they understood in the lesson and one thing that they still have questions about. Students put the post its in the appropriate columns on the whiteboard on their way out of class. Emphasizing Key Information & Correcting Misunderstandings Snow Storm Students write down what they learned on a piece of scratch paper and wad it up. Given a signal, they throw their paper snowballs in the air. Then each student picks up a paper and reads it aloud. Quick Summary Kids write a 20 word summary of the lesson. To change the activity a bit, ask students to include specific words in their summary Quick Share Students turn to a classmate and share one thing that they learned from class that day, why that thing is relevant, how this new information effects their thinking or why it is relevant to their life. This could also be done whole class by replacing the query of does anyone have any questions. Think Learn Wonder Students write down one thing from the lesson that:
It is not always necessary to do an activity to close class, sometimes just asking if anyone has questions is sufficient. However, a mix of closing activities is appropriate especially when there has been the introduction of new skills and/or information. On these occasions a closing activity is beneficial as it reinforces the ideas from the beginning of class in student memory.
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As the push to eliminate financial barriers to accessing information and the subsequent conversation about increasing the use of Open Educational Resources in higher education continues, we are charged with exploring ways to assist students in using the resources available to them.
The use of primarily digitized information is new to many students as much of their academic experience incorporated a textbook as the central repository of information; thus, many of our students are accustomed to having a textbook that guides their learning. This factor does not necessarily make the textbook a preferable option but it is the medium through which our students have been conditioned to learn. With the use of Open Education Resources students must glean information from a variety of articles which potentially come in various digital formats including PDF, websites and blogs. PDF documents are easier for students to print, which allows for reading and annotating on paper as they have traditionally done. However, printing websites and blogs can be onerous and ineffective due to the presence of advertisements and similar distractors. So how can students interact with text on websites? The free web tool Hypothesis has the potential to be a significant help in this regard. Hypothesis allows students to input a URL and then annotate directly on the webpage. Hypothesis has three key features: Ability to Annotate Hypothesis has the functionality to highlight text, add annotations to highlighted text and record notes.
Students can get a link to their annotations so that their work can be submitted to the instructor through uLearn. Ability to Annotate and Work in Groups Hypothesis also has the ability to create groups so that students can communicate about their readings.
As an instructor in the higher education setting, consider referring students to Hypothesis to assist with their reading of digital text, you can put a link to it in your uLearn course. If you are considering making the switch to OER, then this web tool might bring you comfort knowing that your students will be able to read and annotate the provided articles as they did when they purchased a textbook. |