Ep61-Engaging-Ways-to-end-a-lesson.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Hey, teachers, if you have a classroom and a commute, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Rachael, and I want to ride along with you each week on your ride into school. This podcast is the place for busy teachers who want actionable tips, simple strategies, and just want to enjoy their job more. Let's go.
Hey there and welcome back to another episode of The Classroom Commute Podcast. I'm Rachael, your host, thank you so much for joining me today. I've got a quick story that I want to start with today and maybe a little fun fact that you did not know about me. In high school I was always part of the school musicals. It was one of my favorite times of year. I could always remember spending almost every day after school in the school auditorium, practicing songs, dances, and memorizing lines for the show. My proudest moment was when I got to play Fiona in the musical Brigadoon, which is a super old musical that you probably have never heard of, but it was my senior year and I loved it. I finally got the lead. Now, in my several years of being in a musical, I can always remember as we got closer to showtime, my director saying things like, "If we have a strong beginning and a strong end, the show will be a big hit. No one remembers the middle." Of course, this was typically said on dress rehearsal nights when everything seemed to be going wrong and it was only hours till the curtain rises. Well, this wasn't necessarily the case 100%, but to some extent it did have some truth. If you've ever sat in the audience of a musical, you typically do remember that grand opening number with all the cast members on the stage and the show stopping finale with a concluding high note by the lead character. Typically, no one remembers when somebody forgot their line in the middle of the show or didn't hit the note just right, but they do remember the beginning and the end.
I think the same thing goes for our teaching as well. Presenting our lessons to students is kind of like a musical performance, we're basically actors and actresses every day in our classrooms. We want that epic beginning that's going to grab our students attention right from the start and we want that standing ovation at the end of our lesson. Oh, wouldn't that be nice? Now, back in Episode 44, I talked all about engaging ways to start your lesson, you might want to head back there and have a listen. Today, we're going to talk about ending your lesson with a bang. I believe that how you end your lesson is just as important as how you start your lesson. Of course, the middle of our lessons matter, too but let's be honest, that's where we spend most of our time and energy. We focus a lot on the activities that students are going to be completing in the middle of the lesson, the beginning and the end of our lessons often become an afterthought. That's why I think it's important to focus today on how to end your lesson with a bang.
Let's do just that. Here are ten engaging ways to end your lesson, any lesson. The first one is called 'The 60 Second Challenge'. It's super simple and takes no preparation at all. After you end your lesson, you're going to challenge a student to speak about what they've learned during your lesson for a whole minute or 30 seconds, if you think that's a better fit for your students. You can involve your entire class by having them do this with a partner instead of just having one student for the whole class. As partners share, you can walk around the room and jot down the things that you hear your students saying and then share those ideas with the class as a final review. You can do the same activity over and over and again and as your students become acquainted with it, all you have to do is say "Get ready for the 60 second challenge", they turn to a partner and they're on their way.
The next activity is called 'Do the High Five Hussle'. Now, in this era of covid, you might need to do the foot tap hustle or the elbow tap hustle, whatever works but you'll get the idea. This is how you do it, you have students stand up, spread throughout the room, and you play the song, "Do the Hustle". Now, if you don't know the song, I will link to it in the show notes so you can listen to it for yourself. The students are going to hustle or dance around the room to find a partner as you're playing the song. Then you're going to stop the music abruptly, just like you would if you were playing musical chairs. The students will quickly find a partner to high five, foot tap, elbow tap, whatever you're having them do. Then this becomes their 'hustle buddy'. Give students a quick question to discuss based on your lesson and then give students a few minutes to talk about it. Once they hear the music playing again, have them hustle on to another person and they can have different discussions, answer different questions with different students as you complete this activity. The beauty of this is that you can do it for as long or as little as time allows. It's a great lesson ender or even a day ender to have students kind of do the hustle for all of the activities that they've learned throughout the day.
The next activity I have mentioned on the podcast before, but I wanted to mention it again because it makes a great lesson ender activity. It's called 'Show What You Know', I have an entire blog post that I've written that I linked to in the show notes that goes into great detail. Basically students have a set of cue cards with several answers on it. Let's say you're learning about the rotation and revolution of the earth in science. You may have a card on it that one answer says rotation and one answer says revolution. You'll ask several questions to help students decide whether you're referring to rotation or revolution. When they want to reveal the answer to your question, they're just going to simply put their finger next to the correct answer on their card and show you so that you can see it. It's a really easy way for you to take a glance at the whole class to see who understood and who didn't. It's a great way for students to review what you've learned in your lesson. I have a free set of 'Show What You Know' cards over in our Members Resource Library, I will link to those in the show notes so you can grab them if you haven't already. If you're not already a member, I will give you the link to sign up as well. It's completely free and you can grab those cards in our Student Assessment section. I also have an entire set of almost 40 cards that you can grab over on Teachers Pay Teachers and I will link to those as well.
All right, the next activity is called 'Five Words or Less'. It's basically like what it sounds. You're going to challenge students to sum up your lesson in five words or less. I love this activity because it really makes students think carefully about the words that they use and it forces them to focus on the most important key words from your lesson to best summarize what they've learned. You can even do a challenge to see if a student can do it in four words or three words or two words, or even come up with one word that you think captures the whole lesson. It's a great reflection activity for your students.
This next activity is going to be best with your older students. Of course, it is something that you can work up to if you have those younger students. It's called 'What?, So what?, Now what?'. It's a great prompt for students to show what they've learned, they can either write it down or just discuss it. The first part is that 'What?', students are going to write or discuss simple facts of what they learned. Then they're going to write "So what?" and in this section of their paper or their discussion, they're going to write what the importance of what they learned is or how it help them. Maybe you taught them a new strategy and they can talk about how it help them. The last part of this prompt is the 'Now What?'. this is where students are going to write 'Where do we need to take our learning from here? What's the next step? Or how did this affect our thinking?' You have that, 'What?, So what?, Now what?', it guides students through the process of thinking about what they've learned. What did they learn? Why is it important? and Where do we go from here?
This next activity or idea is a little bit better for your younger students if you like this idea of having students write down something that stuck with them. It's called 'What Stuck With You Today'. This is a great lesson ender or even a great day ender. Students are simply going to each get a Post-it note and write down one thing that's stuck with them for that lesson. If they are leaving your room for the day, maybe they can just put it up on a wall somewhere where you've designated in your classroom. Again, you have that great visual of where students are when they leave the lesson so you can have that quick assessment of what they took away from your lesson.
Now, if you want to take that one step further and make it a little bit more visual, you can do an 'Exit Gallery Walk'. Instead of having them write down just one thing that they learned, you're going to have them create a quick visual representation of what they learned. This could be an illustration, a word cloud, whatever it is that they can put down on paper to visually represent what they learned. Then you're going to have students post those visuals, whether it's a Post-it note or a piece of paper somewhere around the room, and then have students walk around the room, comment to each other about what they're seeing from their peers papers, ask each other questions. It's a simple way to get students to think about how other people viewed the lesson and what others took away from the lesson. You can give students a time limit for creating their visual. You're not going to get fancy with crayons or markers, easy sketches will do. Then you can give them just a quick five minutes or so to walk around the room and see what their peers have put on their papers.
We've got three more activities here. The next one is called 'Be the Teacher'. It's exactly like what it sounds like. You're going to invite a student to reteach the key points that everyone should have learned during the lesson to the rest of the class. Now, if you think this might cause a little anxiety in your students, you could tell them ahead of time who you're going to pick to be the teacher, or you could have them volunteer, whatever you think works best with your class. Then that student, if they know that they're going to be the teacher, they're going to be encouraged to listen extra carefully during your lesson so that they can then share with the class what they've learned.
The next activity is called 'Exit Slips'. Now, you have likely done something like this or I've seen other teachers do this, but this one takes a little bit of a different spin to an exit slip. An exit slip, a lot of times teachers will just have them write down one thing that they've learned on the paper or even answer a question. This particular activity gives students a little choice. If you've been with me for a little while, you know that I'm a big fan of giving students choice so that they're not just assigned exactly what they need to do all day, every day. They have a little bit of choice. That just allows students to reflect upon something in their own way. To do this, you're going to give students a slip of paper and you're going to give them three choices. They can answer an essential question that you are going to give them, something from the lesson of course. You can give them the option to ask for clarification if there was something they didn't understand or if they want more information about it. You can have them record a thought about the days lesson. They have three choices. Answer a question, ask for clarification, or record a thought. Then you can just have them turn these slips into you. Maybe you have a bin somewhere in your classroom, where they'll put them. What I love about this activity is that you can then take these exit slips and use them as lesson starters for the next day. You might review that essential question and read off several students answers, review that particular topic from your lesson, or you might answer somebody's clarification question that they had and you answer it with the whole class because if one student was thinking it, there were likely be other students also wanting that same clarification. You could also share a thought that students shared on their slips. This is a great way because you can use it for ending your lesson and then use it for starting your lesson the next day.
The last activity is called '3 - 2 - 1', and it's kind of similar to the exit slip, but you're a little bit more guided. This one, you're going to have students write or discuss three things they learned, two questions they have, and one 'aha' moment from the lesson. It's a little bit more guided and it gives students a little more structure as to how you want them to show what they've learned.
At my count, that was ten different ways that you can end your lesson and I would encourage you to use all 10 and keep things interesting and use them throughout the year. Students will get good at them as you use them more and more. Remember, if you want that epic beginning to your lesson, make sure you check out Episode 44 where I talked about engaging ways to start your lesson. Of course, everything else that I've mentioned in this episode will be over at the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/61.
That's all I have for you today. I hope you have a great start to your week and I will be back again next week with another episode. Bye for now.
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