![]() ![]() To answer the second question, students have to decide where confusion or weaknesses remain in their own comprehension of the day’s material. Most of us are infected by what learning theorists sometimes call “illusions of fluency,” which means that we believe we have obtained mastery over something when we truly have not. The second question encourages them to probe their own minds and consider what they haven’t truly understood. They have to reflect on the material and make a judgment about the main point of that day’s class. The first one not only requires students to remember something from class and articulate it in their own words (more about that in a moment), but it also requires them to do some quick thinking. Taken together, those two questions accomplish multiple objectives. What question still remains in your mind?.What was the most important thing you learned today?.The Minute Paper comes in many variations, but the simplest one involves wrapping up the formal class period a few minutes early and posing two questions to your students: Patricia Cross in their book Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. ![]() You can’t wade very far into the literature of teaching and learning in higher education without encountering some version of the Minute Paper, a technique made justly famous by Thomas A. In this column, the fourth in a series of six, let us turn to ways we can make better use of the final five minutes of class. Thus far in this series of essays - which draw from my book (ahem, just published this month), Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons From the Science of Learning - I have argued for the power of small changes in the minutes before class starts, in the first five minutes of class, and in the connections we can help students make between the course material and the world around them. Fortunately, a substantial body of research on learning in higher education offers us strategies for improving our teaching in ways that don’t require a major overhaul, and yet that have the power to boost the learning, motivation, and mind-set of our students in substantive ways. But the prospect of change can be overwhelming. Like most of my fellow professors, I know I could be doing many things better in my teaching. As I have been arguing in this series, small changes to our teaching - such as the way we approach the closing minutes of class - can make a big difference. When it comes to the deliberate construction of our course periods, we can do better. We make little or no effort to put a clear stamp on the final minutes of class, which leads to students eyeing the clock and leaving according to the dictates of the minute hand rather than the logic of the class period. But why should we be surprised by that reaction when our class slides messily to a conclusion? We’re still trying to teach while students’ minds - and sometimes their bodies - are headed out the door.
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