Zak's Weekly Musings (September 13, 2023)

In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus sought to contribute to the growing corpus of research on memory and retention. Specifically, Ebbinghaus was looking into both how we remember things and how we can remember these things better. He studied how fast we learn, how often we need to repeat something, and if the order of information matters. For his testing ground, he chose a K-12 school setting in New York City – he was based out of Columbia University.

What he found, all the way back in 1885, was that in a classroom setting the opening and closing routines serve as the “most important repetitions to counteract the forgetting curve.” In other words, if we want students to encode and retain information from class, the opening and closing routines we establish are of the utmost importance. 

In the years since 1885, study after study has reached similar conclusions, even when these studies weren’t explicitly seeking to examine the efficacy of entry and exit routines. 

Studies as disparate in time and objective as a 2009 study on truancy, a 2003 study on classroom management, and a 1999 study on student-teacher relationships, each revealed the myriad and multileveled benefits of having consistent and predictable entry and exit routines. 

As John Hattie’s research reminds us, there are many things we can do in a classroom to improve learning, but some of these interventions cost quite a bit of time and preparation. However, the beauty of entry and exit routines is their simplicity and efficiency; they demand minimal time and have no associated cost.

When something so effective requires such a minimal amount of resource investment, it’s something that I believe is worthwhile to harp on. With this in mind, I will be writing more about the sort of entry and exit procedures we should see around the Middle School. For today, though, I want to just share a list of ideas from a recent Edutopia article. My hope in sharing this list is that between this week and next week, you will try one of these openers or closers.

Classroom Openers

  • Rapid Review: Summarize previous learning in pairs and present to the larger group.

  • Bait and Switch: Use a quiz to confront and debunk common misconceptions about upcoming topics.

  • Informational Hooks: Use media or text like videos, podcast clips, or provocative quotes related to the topic to pique student interest.

  • Vocabulary Splashes: Provide students with key vocabulary terms for the unit and have them sort and discuss these words.

  • Low Stakes Quizzes (and Pre-Quizzes): Utilize low-stakes quizzes to gauge understanding or even pretest students on material they haven't yet learned.

  • Brain Dumps: Allow students a short period to write down everything they know about a particular topic.

Classroom Closers

  • Rate the Learning or Lesson: Students rate their understanding of the lesson and provide feedback.

  • Two-dollar Summary: Students summarize the lesson in concise terms, imagining each word costs 10 cents.

  • Clear or Cloudy: Students identify what they clearly understand and what they're confused about.

  • Measure (or Signal) Your Knowledge: Use human bar graphs or traffic light systems for students to visually represent their understanding.

  • Create News "Headlines" or "Six-word Summaries": Students craft short summaries or headlines of what they've learned.

  • Rock, Paper, Scissors: A worksheet where students identify the hardest part of the lesson (rock), main ideas (paper), and less important details (scissors).

  • Quiz the Next Class: Encourage students to create quiz questions about the material to quiz their peers.

  • Make Your Classroom a Beach: Use a beach ball with reflective questions written on it. Students answer the question their finger touches when they catch the ball.