5 engaging activities to “check for understanding” during your lesson!
are you Looking for engaging ways to check for understanding during your lessons? do you find yourself talking too much during theory? want to make your lessons more fun and engaging for your students? ….Here are 5 activities to incorporate into your lessons that will increase your student participation and ensure your students are understanding and retaining the information that you are teaching.
theory is typically our students least favorite part of class! We do our best to make it as engaging and fun for the students as possible, but sometimes you may find yourself doing A lot of talking and explaining, while you are left unsure if your students are actually understanding. Every lesson that we teach does not cause for an elaborate project or activity to go along with it, however, we still want our lessons to be engaging and ensure that our students understand.
while I’m teaching theory i typically have my students to take notes in some sort of format (rather they are making flashcards, creating a chart or table, or simply adding vocabulary to their spirals, notetaking is very important.) however, the idea of lecturing while your students take notes can be very old school and boring. Even though as teachers, we still must do lecturing to some extent, we have to make sure that we are making our lessons as interesting, fun, and interactive as possible. One way to do this is by “chunking the lesson”.
Chunking the lesson just means that instead of one long lecture where students are able to get lost and begin daydreaming from boredom, we should break up the lesson with short engaging activities for the students to complete so we can check for understanding.
below i have included 5 of the “quick checks” that I like to use with my students during my lessons.
TUrn and talk:
TUrn and talks are simple, yet effective. after explaining a part of the lesson, have your students to turn and talk to discuss whatever you want them to. you may ask them a question about what you just taught, you may ask them to provide an example, you may ask them the define a word that you just discussed, etc. once the students know what they are to discuss, set a timer for 30 seconds- 1 minute and allow them to discuss. Once the timer goes off, take volunteers, or randomly select a student to present their answers to the class.
(If you would like to be able to check for understanding from everyone, you may choose to have the partnerships actually write the answers they discuss together and collect their papers, so that you can actually review everyone’s answers and ensure understanding.
boards and markers:
every students will need a board and dry erase marker for this quick check activity. after explaining a part of the lesson, you may ask questions/definitions, display questions/definitions on your board/projector, ask for an example of a concept, etc.
allow the students to write their responses quickly on their white boards and to display them to you at your say so. this will allow you to observe all white boards at once and make sure the students aren’t looking at other white boards before writing their answers.
this technique will allow you to quickly check everyone’s Answers. If majority of the class understands, you may simply recap and then move forward with your lesson. if it seems like majority of your class does not understand, then you can reteach, and complete Another quick check before moving forward.
short Kahoots/Quizziz games:
online games such as kahoot have become very popular in classrooms. They are very useful for lessons and fun for students. try incorporating a short Kahoot, Quizizz (www.quizizz.com), or any other short online game. You may even choose to incorporate games that are not online, such as matching games with terms and definitions on paper that your students are able to do in groups or individually. regardless of the route you choose, after teaching a section of your lesson, allow your students to play a quick game (no more than 10 minutes). use this to verify understanding, and move forward in your lesson Accordingly.
review questions:
THis method of quick check is very simple, however, it still breaks up the lecture and allows you to engage your students. after Explaining the lesson, rather than moving straight into the next section, simply ask a few review questions. you may choose to ask aloud while randomly selecting students to answer, or you may choose to display the questions on the board and have the students to write them down so that you may collect and view each answer.
This or that:
Lastly, if you want to get your students up and moving, you may choose to play this or that! After explaining the section of the lesson, have your students to stand up. Ask them questions or read Definitions, giving them 2 answer choices per question. make one side of your classroom the “this” option and the other side of your classroom the “that” option. Have the students to move to either side of the classroom they choose, depending on the answer they believe to be correct.
You may select someone to explain why they chose the answer they chose or to explain the answer after each question to help further review.
each of these activities are meant to be engaging and short. you may even find that you can use several or all of these ideas in 1 class lesson to really help mix up your lesson and provide your students with a more engaging and productive learning experience.
I hope you find these Activates useful!
enjoy!
