Closing the lesson
The check-out ensures a common closure of the learning process and can also give students some time to reflect. For the most courageous teachers, it can be a great opportunity to receive feedback on the lesson from the students.
There are several techniques you can use, among which:
You can invite students to reflect and write in the chat the answer to a reflection question related to the learning process:
- What was the most important thing you learned?
- What was the best / worst moment of the lesson?
- What is still unclear?
You can also have a more complex question, such as: Summarize what you learned today, in one sentence. For this question, you can use a trick: ask students to write their answers in the chat, but not press Enter. Ask them to press Enter all at once, at your signal. This way, you ensure they post their own answers.
Don’t require students to compulsory answer the question. Work with their motivation and allow for some freedom. This will ensure more willingness from their side to actively participate in the next lesson.
Do not forget to save the chat and refer to these answers in the next lesson.
If you feel like, connect again with your students before saying goodbye, by asking a personal question, such as:
- What could you do to make yourself happy today?
- If you would be a song, at the end of this lesson, which song would you be?
- If you would be a colour, what colour would you think you are at the end of this lesson?
You can also invite students to think of a “mimed” check-out, such as:
- Show with your hands (from hands very close to… hugging the screen) what is your level of energy now.
- Show with your thumbs (up, medium, down) how you felt you contributed to today’s lesson.
- Show with a face expression (or an emoji) how you feel at the end of this lesson.
Exit tickets are “a formative assessment tool that requires students to respond to a few key questions or prompts at the end of a lesson. They:
- enable educators to quickly assess students' understanding of a concept
- help students reflect on what they have learned and review their performance
- can be modified to focus the results around well-being and student welfare.“ (13)
A useful exit ticket objective is to translate learning into action items. Students can think of something they want to start doing, or they intend to change, after the lesson. Of course, an exit ticket is or is not relevant, based on the contents of the lesson. If it is a lesson (or a sequence / day) which can be linked to real life, you can check with students later if they applied what they learned.
Reflection exercise: which would be 3 different ways in which you can close the lesson by asking a question?
Practical exercise: a 3-2-1 exit ticket is a method that invites the students, at the end of the lesson, to individually list 3 things they learned, 2 things they found interesting, and 1 question they still have. Read more about it here:
13 - Exit tickets