Small Changes in Teaching: The First 5 Minutes of Class

Ideas para empezar las clases de una forma más dinámica.

Sacadas de un articulo publicado en: http://chronicle.com/article/Small-Changes-in-Teaching-The/234869 

Open with a question or two:

 Another favorite education writer of mine, the cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham, argues that teachers should focus more on the use of questions. "The material I want students to learn," he writes in his book Why Don’t Students Like School?, "is actually the answer to a question. On its own, the answer is almost never interesting. But if you know the question, the answer may be quite interesting."

My colleague Greg Weiner, an associate professor of political science, puts those ideas into practice. At the beginning of class, he shows four or five questions on a slide for students to consider. Class then proceeds in the usual fashion. At the end, he returns to the questions so that students can both see some potential answers and understand that they have learned something that day.

Those questions are also available to the students in advance of class, to help guide their reading and homework. But having the questions visible at the start of class, and returning to them at the end, reminds students that each session has a clear purpose. So consider opening class with one or more questions that qualify as important and fascinating. You might even let students give preliminary answers for a few moments, and then again in the closing minutes, to help them recognize how their understanding has deepened over the course period.

What did we learn last time?

 A favorite activity of many instructors is to spend a few minutes at the opening of class reviewing what happened in the previous session. That makes perfect sense, and is supported by the idea that we don’t learn from single exposure to material — we need to return frequently to whatever we are attempting to master.

But instead of offering a capsule review to students, why not ask them to offer one back to you?

In the teaching-and-learning world, the phenomenon known as the "testing effect" has received much ink. Put very simply, if we want to remember something, we have to practice remembering it. To that end, learning researchers have demonstrated over and over again that quizzes and tests not only measure student learning, but can actually help promote it. The more times that students have to draw information, ideas, or skills from memory, the better they learn it.

Instead of "testing effect," I prefer to use the more technical term, "retrieval practice," because testing is not required to help students practice retrieving material from their memories. Any effort they make to remember course content — without the help of notes or texts — will benefit their learning.

Take advantage of that fact in the opening few minutes of class by asking students to "remind" you of the key points from the last session. Write them on the board — editing as you go and providing feedback to ensure the responses are accurate — to set up the day’s new material. Five minutes of that at the start of every class will prepare students to succeed on the memory retrieval they will need on quizzes and exams throughout the semester. 

Students should do all of this without notebooks, texts, or laptops. Retrieval practice only works when they are retrieving the material from memory — not when they are retrieving it from their screens or pages.

Reactivate what they learned in previous courses:

Whatever knowledge students bring into a course has a major influence on what they take away from it. So a sure-fire technique to improve student learning is to begin class by revisiting, not just what they learned in the previous session, but what they already knew about the subject matter.

The accuracy of students’ prior content knowledge is the foundation on which new knowledge is built. If students’ prior knowledge is faulty (e.g., inaccurate facts, ideas, models, or theories), subsequent learning tends to be hindered because they ignore, discount, or resist important new evidence that conflicts with existing knowledge."

Asking students to tell you what they already know (or think they know) has two important benefits. First, it lights up the parts of their brains that connect to your course material, so when they encounter new material, they will process it in a richer knowledge context. Second, it lets you know what preconceptions students have about your course material. 

Here, too, try posing simple questions at the beginning of class followed by a few minutes of discussion: "Today we are going to focus on X. What do you know about X already? What have you heard about it in the media, or learned in a previous class?" You might be surprised at the misconceptions you hear, or heartened by the state of knowledge in the room. Either way, you’ll be better prepared to shape what follows in a productive way.

Write it down:

All three of the previous activities would benefit from having students spend a few minutes writing down their responses. That way, every student has the opportunity to answer the question, practice memory retrieval from the previous session, or surface their prior knowledge — and not just the students most likely to raise their hands in class.

You don’t have to grade the responses very carefully — or at all. Count them for participation, or make them worth a tiny fraction of a student’s grade. If you don’t want to collect the papers, have students write in their notebooks or on laptops and walk around the classroom just to keep everyone honest and ensure they are doing the work. Limit writing time to three to five minutes and ask everyone to write until you call time — at which point discussion begins.

Use the first few minutes for writing exercises. Not only do they offer learning benefits, but also they have both a symbolic value and a focusing function. Starting with five minutes of writing helps students make the transition from the outside world to the classroom.

Let a writing exercise help you bring focus and engagement to the opening of every class session. Build it into your routine. Class has begun: time to write, time to think.

In writing, as in learning, openings matter. Don’t fritter them away.

James M. Lang is a professor of English and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College, in Worcester, Mass. His new book, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons From the Science of Learning, will be published in March of 2016. Follow him on Twitter at @LangOnCourse.