The countdowns are on all over the place, and that means in many classrooms, it’s time to review. So let’s dive into a lightning round of review ideas to help you come up with ways to make all that looking back engaging and memorable for your students.
Review with Sketchnotes
The research is in, and it fits with what we knew all along. In a recent episode of Edutopia’s School of Practice Podcast, “The Extraordinary Impact of Drawing to Learn,” they explored the power of sketching to encode learning: “When kids attentively sketch something they’re learning about, they tap into the visual, kinesthetic, and linguistic parts of the brain, research shows. This generates abundant connections across the brain’s neural network and encodes learning even more deeply than more passive learning tasks, like reading or listening to a lecture.”
You can give students templates or giant post-its to work with. If this will be your first crack at sketchnotes, consider showing them some models or sketch videos so they can see the concept.
After students create these visual artifacts from the year, you might consider a gallery walk so they can learn from what each other chose as most important to write down.
Review with Hexagonal Thinking
For this review activity, students create hexagons to reflect both the content of each unit and the ways they grew as a student and learner during each unit. It’s a chance to review AND reflect on their overall trajectory from the year.
I like the way this activity helps students step back and see not just what they’ve learned but how they’ve grown in their approach to learning.
You can grab this free download over here, if you’d like to try it.
Review with Games
Wrapping up with games is a fun way to close out the year. You might play a Jeopardy-inspired review game, slotting questions into point columns, Crumple and Shoot (via Jennifer Gonzalez at Cult of Pedagogy), or some kind of review version of Pictionary. I like the idea of students trying to draw postmodernism or metaphor, that could be a blast.
Review with a Collaborative Mural
Do you have a giant whiteboard or chalkboard running across one wall? What if you broke it up into sections and let groups create pieces of a mural to reflect each unit of the year? You could create specific components that need to go into the mural, but ask them to also include symbolic images, lettered quotes, and an overall guiding theme for their square. Of course, once each group has finished, take time for the whole group to walk through and see everyone’s work, and take some pictures to share too.
Provide a Choice Board
By the time they get to you, many of your students will know how they like to review, what works for them. Others may have some strategies but be looking for more. A review choice board gives students a chance to play to their strengths or expand into new options. You can see one version you could use above, with six ideas, but you may have more that you’d like to add, or you can even ask your class to help you list more options that they have liked in the past.
Finally…
However you choose to review, I’m sending you good thoughts and positive energy for these final days or weeks. The home stretch is so stuffed with events, feelings, and summer dreams. Finding engaging ways to review and reflect on the year can help, and I hope you’ve found one or two ideas you’d like to try.
