Precious Minutes at the Start and End of Lessons

I came across an Edutopia article titled The 8 Minutes That Matter Most by Brian Sztabnik that listed several simple ideas for engaging students and establishing a positive community of learners. These eight minutes that matter most occur during the beginning and ending of lessons. 

I'll highlight a few ideas that I think are very powerful and would be suitable to incorporate into lessons according to the Walled Lake Schools Instructional Framework.

Start of a Lesson: Activate prior knowledge, generate interest and create anticipation for learning

Strategy: Start with Good News

Take two minutes at the start of each lesson for sharing and celebrating good news. This will help create a safe space for students to get to know each other and take risks, which sets up a positive learning environment.  

Strategy: Write for Five Minutes

Kelly Gallagher says that students should write four times as much as a teacher can grade. Students need to write -- a lot -- if they are to improve. One way to achieve that is to start each day with an essential question that students must spend five minutes answering. If done day after day, it becomes ritualistic and builds stamina. 

There are seven defining characteristics of an essential question:

1. Open-ended--no single or correct answer
2. Thought-provoking -- content to spark discussion and debate 
3. Requires higher-order thinking such as inference, analysis, prediction
4. Ideas transfer across topics and disciplines
5. Raises additional questions to spark further inquiry
6. Timeless --could be revisited again and again

End of a Lesson: Check for Understanding

Strategy: Post it Power

Consider asking students to write down one thing that the learned from a classmate on a post-it note and stick it on a wall in the classroom on the way out the door. At the start of the lesson the next day, read the notes aloud. This will solidify the community of learners and validate class participation. 

Strategy: Exit Tickets

Use exit tickets as formative assessment to guide tomorrow's instruction. See this extensive list of exit ticket ideas by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe.