Closures: my first goal for new semester


The semester starts tomorrow for me, and I am working hard at addressing some of my shortcomings. One weakness I have always had was the closure to my lessons. 

I could never really figure out how to close the lesson. No, scratch that. I knew how, I never really could REMEMBER to do a good closure! With that in mind, I have done a couple of things this semester to help me.

  1. I have set a repeating alarm on my cellphone. It goes off 5 minutes before class ends. I have selected kind of a soothing, interesting music to sound, as well as vibrate. This is my reminder to stop, and DO the closure.
  2. To make the closure process easy, efficient, and solid, so that I WILL do it every day, I have spent some time this summer collecting ideas for solid closures. That link will take you to a google doc where you will see many of the ideas and questions I have collected.  [Please feel free to add more!]  One thing that is going to make it easier, is my use of google forms to do the collection. (thank you Mari Venturino!) I think her form is amazing, and I have adapted it for my own use. This takes my 50 minute class down to 45, but I think it will be worth it. 
  3. I really like the 6 questions she has embedded in the middle of her form. 
Mari’s class feedback

I have challenged my apprentice teacher to ask question 2. I think he will be surprised by the answer. I really wonder why we don’t ask that question every single day, every single class! I think we are afraid of the answers. 

So, my first goal this semester. Every single class, an exit ticket of some form. Non-negotiable. I must close the class by modeling exit tickets, and USE that information in the next class planning. 

I am excited to begin the new semester! It is going to be a rough one. 5 different classes to teach, AND writing a dissertation. No big deal. I got this!


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