Don't Forget Closure

There are many pedagogical techniques that run the gambit when it comes to instruction and learning. In a previous post, I discussed the importance of opening lessons with a bang, using an anticipatory set. Whether you call it a set, hook, or bell ringer is not the issue. What is, though, is the value the strategy has as part of a comprehensive lesson. Here’s why:

The anticipatory set is used to prepare learners for the lesson or task by setting their minds for instruction or learning. This is achieved by asking a question, adding a relevant context, or making statements to pique interest, create mental images, review information, and initiate the learning process. A good do-now activity can accomplish this.

While the opening moments with students are crucial, so are the final minutes. Think about this for a second. What’s the point of an objective or learning target, whether stated, on the board, or students have the opportunity to later discover for themselves, if there is no opportunity at the end to determine if it was met or reflected upon? Closure matters, yet virtually every lesson I observe in schools across the country are missing the crucial component. Here’s why. Learning increases when lessons are concluded in a manner that helps students organize and remember the point of the lesson. Closure draws attention to the end of the lesson, helps students organize their learning, reinforces the significant aspects of the lesson, allows students to practice what is learned, and provides an opportunity for feedback, review, and reflective thinking.

Kathy Ganske provides this take.

As in a puzzle, an effective lesson has many pieces that must fit together. We typically give considerable thought to how we initiate lessons: activate or build background knowledge, teach essential vocabulary, engage learners, and set a purpose for the lesson. And we carefully select tasks or activities and texts for use during the lesson. But closure is often given short shrift or omitted entirely. We need to be sure we plan time to cycle back to the what, why, and how of students’ learning to help them actively synthesize the parts into a whole. Lesson closure provides space for students to digest and assimilate their learning and to realize why it all matters. Closure is a component of planning and teaching that we can't afford to leave out.

A Google search will turn up a slew of ideas on how to close lessons. I prefer to keep it simple. First, make sure it is planned for and that at least three to five minutes are set-aside at the end of every period or block. Second, consider the following questions that students should answer or reflect upon in relation to the objective or learning target.

• What exactly did I learn?
• Why did we learn this?
• How will I use what was learned today outside of school, and how does it connect to the real world?

Whether exit tickets, journals, whiteboards, or technology are used doesn’t really matter. What does is that closure is prioritized.

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Who Should Facilitate Professional Learning?

Have you ever paid money to go and watch a professional sporting event, play, or musical? Your answer is probably a resounding yes.  If you are like me, then you have gone too many times to count and have lost track. What drives you to spend money and attend these events? More than likely you go to watch the athletes compete or artists perform. In some cases, you participated in these activities at a certain level during your lifetime.  Or maybe you are just passionate about and moved by, how the experience makes you feel.  Regardless of your rationale, it is essential to understand that there is so much going on behind the scenes leading up to the culminating event that you pay to watch.   

Let me focus the rest of my point on professional sports. For countless hours each athlete is coached, taught, and guided by numerous individuals who have some direct experience in the sport. These individuals either excelled at some level, whether professional or collegiate, or they are a master teacher when it comes to knowledge, ideas, and strategy as to how to take a group of individuals and help them succeed as a team. The majority of these coaches possess a track record of success and the evidence to back it up.  Why else would these people be employed to coach in the first place?

The kicker here though is that many of these coaches have not played the game in years, even decades.  Take Nick Saban for example.  Currently, he is paid millions of dollars (a little over eleven to be exact) as the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team.  As the head coach, he ultimately calls the shots while training both players and assistant coaches alike.  He has had unprecedented success developing players and building a football dynasty that others hope to emulate yet has not played a single snap of collegiate football since 1972 when he was on the team at Kent State University. Right after graduating in 1973 he became an assistant coach at Kent State. Approximately 45 years later he is still at it. This begs the question, which we all know the answer. Had not playing the game in decades hindered his ability to help others achieve impressive results?

There is often a debate in physical and virtual spaces about who should facilitate professional learning for educators.  I see and appreciate the points from both sides.  Many people want current practitioners who can directly relate to either the content or responsibilities of the position.  In a perfect world this would be great as well as ideal, but just like it is unrealistic for current players to coach, the same can be said for practicing educators, especially when the research has shown that on-going, job-embedded professional learning is what leads to improved learning outcomes. Quality professional learning takes time and goes well beyond one and done. It involves a critical lens, lack of bias, modeling, and meaningful feedback to drive growth. 

Saban was a smart player who initially played offense but was later moved to defense. He was also part of a championship team during his playing days and has led teams he has coached to six college championships.  The point here is that experience and outcomes matter. That is what all educators expect and deserve when it comes to professional learning.  The key is to find the right consultants to help move you forward.  When investing in any professional learning options do your research!  Below are some questions that might help you with this:

• How does the organization or consultant’s experience align with our intended outcomes? It is crucial that each have the appropriate experiences to facilitate the work.
• Does the organization or consultant have evidence of success when it comes to improving outcomes? What criteria make them the best to facilitate the work? Just like I did a Google search on Nick Saban, you can do the same when it comes to companies and consultants. 
• How can an outsider’s view move us forward by helping us see what we are missing? It is often difficult to move beyond internal bias.  Sometimes a different relationship and lens are needed to move systems forward. This is where outside consultants can help.
• Is the intended work aligned to research and evidence on what works? In more blunt terms, have they implemented what they are going to train you on? Effective professional learning moves beyond the fluff and broad claims. 

Effective Professional Learning

image credit

Important decisions have to be made when it comes to facilitating professional learning whether it is a workshop, keynote, or something more intensive like job-embedded coaching. As goals and outcomes are fleshed out, it is then incumbent to determine who is best to oversee the work, whether it is a practicing educator, in-house personnel, or an outside consultant. The lesson learned from the story of Nick Saban is that it behooves us not just to write someone off because they are not currently in a classroom or working in a school. 

Substance matters. 

Context matters. 

Experience matters. 

Professional learning is and should be an experience, not just an event. Satisfaction lies not only in having a message that resonates but how the work leads to improvements in teaching, learning, and leadership that are supported by a broad base of research and backed up by actual evidence of better outcomes. Don’t be so quick to judge based on someone’s current position. Do your homework and take a critical lens to their body of work to find the best fit to facilitate professional learning. 

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Reflective Learning as the New Normal

The quest to improve pedagogy, and in turn learner outcomes, is a focus of many schools.  We toil away at chasing the next big innovative idea, trend, or tool as a path to improvement yet little changes. Maybe success lies in taking a more detailed look at daily practice. The key to future-proofing education is to empower students to not only think, but to apply their thinking in relevant ways to demonstrate what has been learned.  Whether you call this rigorous, deeper, personalized, or just plain learning is of no concern to me.  Semantics aside, the goal of all schools should be to equip students with the appropriate knowledge, skills, mindset, and behaviors to help them develop into competent learners.  Getting better at this seems to be a potential rallying cry. 

We can have students learn to do or flip the experience and have them do to learn.  The question then becomes not a conversation as to what pathway is better, but whether or not learning has occurred. Sure, we can slap a grade on it and in many cases that become the evidence that learning did or did not happen. There are flaws inherent here. As many grading practices still are entirely arbitrary and do not provide an accurate indication of learning, we need to re-think our practice. Now I am not saying to do away with grades or tests, as that is just not realistic right now, although it might be at some point in the future. The question then becomes what can be integrated into daily practice to help students learn? 

To get to where you want to be, you need to be honest about where you are right now. This leads me to ask the following question: Are your students provided an opportunity during every lesson to reflect on what he or she has learned? As John Dewey stated, “We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.” It is not a hard ask at all to ensure that students are provided with an opportunity to reflect on the learning target for the day. As I work with schools and districts as a job-embedded coach, one of my main focus areas is to help improve pedagogy both with and without the use of technology. More often than not I do not see opportunities for student reflections through countless walk-throughs, lesson plan reviews, or audits of how digital tools are being used. This is an easy fix if an approach is taken where there is a combination of self-efficacy and commitment to a school-wide goal.  

Something so simple can have a significant impact on learning.  The University of Sheffield provides the following synopsis that validates the importance of this pedagogical strategy:

Reflective learning is a way of allowing students to step back from their learning experience to help them develop critical thinking skills and improve future performance by analyzing their experience. This type of learning helps move the student from surface to deep learning.

Daily reflection provides students with an opportunity to exert more ownership over their learning. Below are some simple strategies that can be used to integrate reflection into any lesson:

• Writing - A daily journal, blog, and LMS (i.e., Google Classroom) can be added as a means to not just review, but also reflect on prior learning.  It can also be used as a form of closure. Simple reflective prompts can also be used.  During a coaching visit I observed Zaina Hussein, a 4th-grade teacher at Wells Elementary, use this with her students (see image below). A great deal of research reviewed by Lew & Schmidt (2011) in their study suggests the positive impact of reflective writing on cognitive development. 

• Video – Flipgrid fever has overtaken many schools. This tool can allow students to use video to reflect on their learning. They can be guided with simple prompts like the ones used by Ms. Hussein. All of the videos are then easily accessible for review on a grid. Think about the value of having students see and hear from their peers about what they either learned or struggled with during the lesson. In their research, Rose et al. (2016) found that video made the reflection experience more authentic and meaningful for both student and teacher.
• Peer interaction – Research by Hatton & Smith (1995) indicated that engaging with another person in a way that encourages talking with, questioning, or confronting, helps the reflective process by placing the learner in a safe environment so that self-revelation may take place.  Consider implementing the critical friends’ strategy or more opportunities for discussion as a means to reflect.

For more strategies and ideas on how to incorporate reflection into pedagogical practice check out this article. If you are interested in learning more about how technology can be used as a catalyst for reflection the check out this post by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano HERE. She also created a great summary image, which you can view below. 

Making the time for students to reflect on their learning leads to more ownership of the process, builds essential connections between both present and past experiences, provides teachers with valuable information related to standard attainment or mastery, and compels them to exert a degree of self-management as they become more capable of regulating their own learning. With these positive outcomes, reflective learning should become the new normal.

Hatton, N., & Smith, D. (1995). Reflection in Teacher Education: Towards Definition and Implementation. 
     The University of Sydney: School of Teaching and Curriculum Studies.

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