Lesson Planning Tip: Plan How to End the Lesson

By the time a lesson’s end rolls around, you may be tempted to wrap up quickly and move on to the next activity or lunch. But even though you’ve already gotten through the heart of the material, it’s still crucial you wrap up the lesson with intention. That way you give students more of a chance to engage with material in educationally sound ways, as well as make it easier on yourself to determine how much they learned and how much re-teaching you’ll need to do in future.

In this article, let’s take a look at specific activities tasks you should keep in mind when ending a lesson. Incorporating these into your routine will make every step of teaching easier, from planning to grading. Let’s get started.

1. Assessment

Assessing your lesson is crucial. Unfortunately, not enough students are making progress in subjects such as reading and mathematics. For instance, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, “the percentage of 4th-grade students performing at or above the Basic achievement level (68 percent) was not measurably different from the percentage in 2011.” Math tells a slightly more hopeful story, with both 4th and 8th grade math skills increasing steadily since 1990.

However, the slow progress of student improvement means teachers must do everything they can to ensure their classes are learning the necessary subject matter. That makes it so important for you to keep track of how each student is performing. Therefore, before you call a lesson good, you must build in some form of assessment (even if it’s informal) to see how well students took to the material.

Quote:

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

~ Benjamin Franklin

2. Reflection

You can also increase the chances that students will really cement knowledge by involving them. Consider requiring a reflection before the end of the lesson. Do this either by asking a specific question (“Which technique did you think worked best for rolling the car down the ramp?”) or something open-ended (“What are some other ways you think we could explore growing seeds?”).

If you want, you can even use this step as a way to manage transitions (which we will cover in more depth below). For instance, have students show you their reflection journal as their “ticket” to recess or lunch, suggests K12 Educator Resources. That way they’ll be motivated to complete it in a timely fashion. Beware, though … reflection should be from the heart, so don’t let students get away with not trying.

3. Grading

After you teach the lesson, read reflections and receive homework, it’s time to grade. While it’s tempting to let grading pile up, don’t do that. Instead, use the end of the lesson as time to do preliminary grading tasks. This could include:

• Getting out your grade book
• Compiling student homework, worksheets or projects
• Scoring quizzes or tests
• Choose a representative sample of work to grade, rather than everything, suggests Conscious Teaching

Remember, deciding what the student EARNED (grading) is different from figuring out what the student LEARNED (assessment), but both are very important. Don’t skip either step.

4. Bridging

It’s also important to connect each lesson to the one you did before (in the beginning) and the one that’s coming next (at the end). Bridging is easier if you can see the unit laid out as a whole. That way, you’ll know where you’re headed, and will be able to give students the pointers they need to make the lesson truly meaningful and well-connected with the other ideas you’re studying in that unit.

One of the ways you can help yourself do this is with lesson planning software such as Planbook Plus. This in-depth program allows you to plot out your lessons for entire weeks or months in multiple subjects. For each lesson, you can plan out the activities and homework that will be associated with it, and use sharing features to coordinate with other teachers on the team or in the building. Doing so will give you a visual map of what’s coming up, and allow you to tie key lessons to one another to deepen student understand and avoid teaching concepts in isolation.

Quote:

Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.

~ Tom Stoppard

5. Cleanup and Transition

Transitions are tough. Especially in the younger grades, when students have a hard time moving from one activity to the next, transitions can very difficult. Even in older grades, though, when kids may get rowdy toward the end of a period or the end of the day, transitioning isn’t always the easiest thing to plan for and execute.

Tom Stoppard’s fascinating and true quote, above, tells us something important about how to manage transitions. If you can approach each transition as a doorway to a fun, new phase of the student’s day, things will probably go easier for you. While still wrapping up the lesson, therefore, try previewing what’s coming next. For younger kids this might sound like “Once we finish, it will be time to check on how our bean sprouts are doing!” and for older students, “I know you’re all excited to be out the door, but first let’s finish our discussion of Great Expectations.” Sometimes just acknowledging the transition goes a long way.

Of course, most teachers already use some of these tips to wrap up their lessons. Hopefully, though, you can start to use each and every one of these strategies to conclude your lessons is a routine way, so that both you and students know what to expect. It will help you assess better, move students to the next activity more smoothly, and understand what you still need to teach or re-teach in upcoming lessons. It’s a win-win … win!