Closing lessons better

Madeline Hunter’s Lesson Plan

Objectives
Before the lesson is prepared, the teacher should have a clear idea of what the teaching objectives that will used. What, specifically, should the student be able to do, understand, care about as a result of the teaching?
One way to think about objectives is to consider the audience, what behaviors you would like
them to adopt (or skills you would like them to demonstrate), how you will measure whether they
have adopted these behaviors, and the degree to which they have adopted them. This is sometimes
called the ABCD method.
A. Audience — Who is the audience? What is their background, education level, and skill set?
What are their interests? What do they expect to gain from this lesson? Are they more or less
homogeneous?
B. Behavior — What the learner will be able to do? What the learner choose to do? What is the
product or result of the doing?
The verb used to describe a desirable behavior in an instructional objective must be an action
verb that is observable. Here are some examples.
1) Given a map of the United States, a student will be able to label the state capitals with 90%
accuracy.
2) Given a diagram, the student will be able to trace the flow of blood through the heart.
3) Given a function, a student will be able to calculate its slope at a given point by differentiating the function, and then evaluating it at this point.
4) Given an assortment of EMS equipment to pick from, the paramedic will be able to identify
all of the equipment necessary to perform rapid sequence intubation without error.
C. Condition — What are the circumstances under which the objectives must be completed? What
will the instructor allow the student to use in order to complete the instruction? To what equipment or tools will the student have access? What will the learner be denied? Here are some
examples.
1) Given a problem of the following type the student will . . .
2) Given a list of . . .
3) Without the aid of a calculator the student will add pairs of improper fractions (numerator
and denominator are one or two digit numbers) with non-common denominators.
4) Given any reference of the learner’s choice . . .
5) Without the aid of references, the student will name 40 of the 48 presidents of the United States.

6) With the aid of references the student . . .
7) Given a matrix of intercorrelations the student will . . .
8) Given a recipe and access to the school kitchen,the student will bake a cherry pie that meets
the red ribbon standard as discussed in Lesson #21.
9) Given speed and distance, the student will calculate the time needed to reach Des Moines
correctly.
10) Given an oxygen wrench, regulator and D tank with oxygen . . .
D. Degree – What is the acceptable standard for performance? What degree of accuracy does the
learner have to achieve in order that his/her performance be judged proficient?
Here are some examples.
1) Given a globe, the student will correctly identify the seven continents.
2) Without using a calculator, the student will solve 10 one variable algebraic equations involving whole number coefficients in 5 minutes or less.
3) Given a sentence written in the past or present tense, the student will be able to rewrite the
sentence in future tense with no errors in tense or tense contradiction.
4) Given a list of thirty five chemical elements, the learner will be able to recall and write the
valences of at least thirty.
Once the overall objectives are considered the Hunter model proposes six elements.
1 Anticipatory Set
Anticipatory set: sometimes called a “hook” to grab the student’s attention: actions and statements by the teacher to relate the experiences of the students to the objectives of the lesson. This
refers to a short activity that draws the students’ attention before the lesson begins. This can be
a handout, an example problem, or a simple question. The idea is to put students into a receptive
frame of mind. The idea is . . .
• to focus student attention on the lesson.
• to create an organizing framework for the ideas, principles, or information that is to follow
(c.f., the teaching strategy called “advance organizers”).
• to extend the understanding and the application of abstract ideas through the use of example
or analogy…used any time a different activity or new concept is to be introduced.
2 Objective: Purpose
The purpose outlines the objective of the day’s lesson. Here the teacher emphasizes how students will benefit from the session and how they will go about learning from it. This section should
describe the specific outcomes and how they will be measured as determined when preparing the
lesson plan.

3 Teaching: Input
Input refers to the vocabulary, skills and other concepts the teacher intends to incorporate in
the session. It basically summarizes what students need to know in order to successfully master
the lesson.
This is more or less a list of steps the teacher will follow to present the materials. You can
provide this information (or knowledge needed to develop a skill) through lecture, film, tape, video,
pictures, demonstrations, etc.
This section is often prepared as an outline.
4 Teaching: Modeling
Here the teacher reinforces the basic input with visual or tactile examples. You use the material
you have presented to show students examples of what is expected as an end product of their work.
The teacher shows the students how it is done. Students are taken to the application level (problemsolving, comparison, summarizing, etc.). For example, the teacher might work a new problem on
the board showing how to add 7
4 +
6
5
, commenting on each step. Or the teacher might show a
slide with a number of ovals and then label the various intersections as an example of using Venn
diagrams.
5 Teaching: Checking for Understanding
This section determines whether students have “got it” before you proceed. It is essential that
students practice doing it right so that you know that students understand before proceeding to
practice.
For example, use some type of 90 second simultaneous visual response mechanism that will
indicate what percent of the students can demonstrate mastery of the concept.
Here are a couple of examples.
• Ask each student to take out a blank sheet of paper and draw a diagram of .
• Ask which of the following words a) b) c) d) is the best synonym for
sustainable? Say the four words and then have students close their eyes and hold their hands
up when you repeat the one they think is closest. Or have them write it on piece of paper.
• Do a thumbs up, thumbs middle, thumbs down check. Thumbs up if you get it, thumbs
middle if you kind of get it, and thumbs down if you don’t get it at all.
• Use a hat or cup to randomly pull a name. Ask that person to explain the assignment to the
rest of the class in their own words. If the assignment has more than 3 parts, call on one
student per part.
Use questions that go beyond mere recall to probe for the higher levels of understanding to
ensure memory network binding and transfer.
One way to describe this is the back rubric.

• repeat-back
• think-back or refelect-back
• paraphrase-back
• teach-back (or to each other)
• play-back (as in role play)
• report-back (as in write)
This step determines if the teacher moves to Guided Practice or reteaches the skill. If there is
any doubt that the class has not understood, the concept/skill should be retaught before practice
begins.
6 Guided Practice
This is an opportunity for each student to demonstrate grasp of new learning by working
through an activity or exercise under the teacher’s direct supervision. The teacher leads the students through the steps necessary to perform the skill emphasized using what is called the tripodal
approach, or see/hear/do. The teacher moves around the room to determine the level of mastery
and to provide individual remediation as needed. As necessary, the teacher pauses and shows the
students how to successfully work through problems as they attempt to do it themselves.
7 Independent Practice (may be outside of class)
Allow the students to practice completing lessons on their own, offering assistance when necessary. Be sure all students understand the lessons of the day, including any homework assignments.
The idea is that once pupils have mastered the content or skill, it is time to provide for reinforcement practice. It is provided on a repeating schedule so that the learning is not forgotten. It may
be home work or group or individual work in class. It can be utilized as an element in a subsequent project. It should provide for decontextualization: enough different contexts so that the
skill/concept may be applied to any relevant situation . . . not only the context in which it was originally learned. This last point is important in preventing students from saying during a test, “this is
not like the examples you worked in class”.
8 Closure
Use a series of actions or statements to bring a lesson presentation to an appropriate conclusion.
Help students bring things together in their own minds, to make sense out of what has just been
taught. “Any questions? No. OK, let’s move on” is not closure. Closure is used . . .
• to cue students to the fact that they have arrived at an important point in the lesson or the end
of a lesson,

to help organize student learning,
• to help form a coherent picture, to consolidate, eliminate confusion and frustration, etc.,
• to reinforce the major points to be learned . . . to help establish the network of thought relationships that provide a number of possibilities for cues for retrieval. Closure is the act
of reviewing and clarifying the key points of a lesson, tying them together into a coherent
whole, and ensuring their utility in application by securing them in the student’s conceptual
network.

Motivational Strategies
With thanks to Tom Turner of Iowa State University.

1. Alarming statistics
2. Interesting fact
3. Story
4. Personal experience
5. Literature
6. Exaggeration
7. Picture
8. Recording
9. Map
10. Data
11. Graphic organizers such as KWL (1What I KNOW, What I WANT to know, What I LEARNED) , a spider map, or a Venn diagram.
12. Questions
13. Example
14. Artifact
15. Riddle

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/22-powerful-closure-activities-todd-finley

By Todd Finley

December 15, 2015

Teachers use closure to:

• Check for understanding and inform subsequent instruction,
• Emphasize key information,
• Tie up loose ends, and
• Correct misunderstandings.

Students find closure helpful for:

• Summarizing, reviewing, and demonstrating their understanding of major points,
• Consolidating and internalizing key information,
• Linking lesson ideas to a conceptual framework and/or previously learned knowledge, and
• Transferring ideas to new situations.

CREATIVE CLOSURE ACTIVITIES

1. Snowstorm: 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 learner picks up a nearby response and reads it aloud.

12. So What?: Have students answer this prompt: What takeaways from the lesson will be important to know three years from now? Why?

13. Dramatize It: Have students dramatize a real-life application of a skill.

14. Beat the Clock: Ask a question. Give students 10 seconds to confer with peers before you call on a random student to answer. Repeat.

15. Teach a First-Grade Student: Have kids orally describe a concept, procedure, or skill in terms so simple that a child in first grade would get it.

16. Review It: Direct kids to raise their hands if they can answer your questions. Classmates agree (thumbs up) or disagree (thumbs down) with the response.

19. Elevator Pitch: Ask students to summarize the main idea in under 60 seconds to another student acting as a well-known personality who works in your discipline. After summarizing, students should identify why the famous person might find the idea significant.

20. Simile Me: Have students complete the following sentence: “The [concept, skill, word] is like _____ because _____.”

22. Out-the-Door Activity: After writing down the learning outcome, ask students to take a card, circle one of the following options, and return the card to you before they leave:

• Stop (I’m totally confused.)
• Go (I’m ready to move on.)
• Proceed with caution (I could use some clarification on _____.)