Got 5 minutes?

Got 5 minutes?

Need a quick easy way to have students summarize what they have learned at the end of class?

Have students show you their understanding through pictures or drawings.

It is a win-win activity. Students love to draw and it will give you a quick assessment of who got the lesson and who may need some review. (I’d rather walk around the room and have fun looking at student drawings than take home 140+ written assignments, what about you?) Put it in your lesson plan as formative assessment or assessment for learning and your supervisor will be impressed too.

Additionally, brain research supports that we store drawings in a different part of our brains than text so this activity stores the content in two places in the brain increasing the likelihood of retention!

Research from Classroom Instruction that Works (Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, & Jane Pollock)
Dual coding theory—knowledge is stored in two forms linguistic and imagery. The more we use both—the better we can remember and think about information.
They cite seven research studies showing gains between 19-38% using non-linguistic representations.

That’s a huge gain—I’d like to gain 19-38% more interest on my savings account! :)

While I usually just use plain paper and give students a topic to illustrate there are many specific drawing strategies and pre-made handouts available.

Check out Episodic Notes from John Burke’s Tools for Thought (also available in ST’s school library) and Etch-A-Sketch or Sketch to Stretch from Harvey Silver, Richard Strong, & Matthew Perini’s Tools for Promoting Active In-Depth Learning (many ST teachers may have a copy of this book from Silver’s visit to Sussex Tech some years ago…)

Check out some of the products from my students:

We were studying the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) in World History. The first drawing illustrates how the Black Death spread throughout Europe while the second drawing explains how the Delta 32 gene in some people’s DNA protects against the Black Death and AIDS.

All it took was five minutes and some extra paper.

Great return of student assessment for the time invested!