Friday, September 10, 2010

Thanks to Grand Rapids

Robin and I had a wonderful time in Grand Rapids. This blog is a very impressive example of immediate transfer.

I want to share the latest closing strategy that I am doing in my professional development.
I use this when I know that there has been a lot of input and the participants brains are full of new learning.

I say, everyone take a piece of paper and write 5 words or less that they think describes this day.
Everyone has a minute to write and then I say, "At your table share your words and then have a conversation and decide on three words that your table agrees best describes the day."
After a couple minutes I have them share the three words to the room. If I have 7 tables then the room gets to here 21 words that summarize the learning for the day. I get valuable feedback and the learners get a chance to hear all of the content for the day reduced to 21 words. (of course there will be some words mentioned more than once)

In an effort to make participants aware of the complexity of the strategy I tell them that this closing activity starts with an individual brainstorm, then a sharing of all words, collaboration towards a goal of finding the top three. Agreement on criteria and then decision making and finally consensus of the group. It is a complex task that serves as a learner lead review of content.
I don't have a name for it yet but I am thinking of calling it . . . In 5 Words or Less.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jason -
Just a note . . . my name is Brian M. Pete. I come from a family of 8 brothers (I am one of the youngest) and I like to tell people when I moved from Portland, OR is when people started calling me by my first name. Until then, they used to say, "Aren't you a Pete?"

J. Kornoely said...

Brian,

Sorry about that. :)

Jason

J. Kornoely said...

Brian,

This is a quality activity. I could see In 5 Words or Less a nice end-of-day staple in the self-contained classroom as a review of the day.