Plenaries?
But I always run
out of time!
We all know that when a lesson isn’t going to plan it
is often our plenary that suffers. Below are a few
ideas that you can have up your sleeve that can be
used with very little preparation.
Ÿ Thumbs for objectives - thumbs up, down or halfway dependent upon how
confident the students are that they have met the objectives.
Ÿ Tell me one thing you did well today and one thing you could have done
better.
Ÿ Post-it questions – issue post its and students write a question that they can
answer from the learning in the lesson and that others should also be able to
answer, you could even have students identify who they want to answer the
question. You can then get students to pose their question, although you may
wish to collect them in to monitor them and select appropriate ones.
Ÿ Plenary cards – create a set of cards (see T&L folder on shared area for
examples) that have sentence starters on to encourage students to reflect on
the learning. Issue a few of these, give thinking time and get students to
read their card and finish the sentence. You can then ask others to see if
they agree or can add anything else.
Ÿ Evaluation tree – Have this either on sheets to hand out or on a PowerPoint
slide. Ask students to say which character they were at the start of the
lesson and which one they are now. Encourage them to explain their
answers.
Ÿ Which picture – a PowerPoint slide that has pictures to represent different
skills students may have used in lesson. Encourage pair discussion and then
select students to say which picture and why. You can also snowball this to
include more students in the room.
Ÿ How does my lesson relate to….. – have some random items in your cupboard
and at the end of a lesson bring one out and ask students to think about how
the lesson relates to the item. Encourage a “no wrong answer” environment
and see what they come up with!