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The Introduction and Conclusion of a Lesson

Introducing a lesson is equally as important as ending the lesson. According to the Cambridge English dictionary, introduction brings a meaning of the first part of something. Introducing anything, in general, allows one to have a certain amount of expectation on what is about to come next. Likewise, when we conclude a lesson or a speech in the correct way, the students or the listener would know what the topic was all about in brief. The conclusion here means the final part of something and in teaching that would mean the ending of the lesson. In this section, I will be reflecting on what I have observed in SK Seafield 3 and also include some of my opinions.

 

 

First, I would like to clarify that I had four mentor teachers (teaches different age group) that I was assigned to throughout my one-week placement at SK Seafield 3, thus, I got to observe the various type of teaching methods possessed by these teachers. Being from a government school myself, I would say that there were not many changes in how the teachers introduce the lesson to the class. As usual all class would begin with greeting the teacher, then they would carry on by letting the students know what they were about to learn for that day.

 

 

One teacher, in particular, stood out with the way Pn. Hafni introduced on of her lesson, it was by refreshing the students’ memory from the lesson the week before. She verbally asked them a few questions before beginning the lesson for the day. The week before the learned about what one undergo when their house is on fire. Some of the questions were “what did we learn last week?” “What happened during the fire?” and “was there anything left behind?”. The students were able to answer the questions, which made it easier to move on with the lesson. In my opinion, relating one lesson to the next and so on ensures that the teacher knows what she is doing at the same time it allows students to make sense and relation about the respective topics that they are learning. Continuation of a lesson for that day was to brainstorm on essential things that are needed by someone who had just lost everything in a fire. As John Dewey (1916) view education like it entailed the continuous ‘reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases the ability to direct the course of subsequent experience. He believes that constructing knowledge on top of the other is the way children should learn and make sense of what they are learning. Hence, for this method to be effective the introduction to a lesson is very important.

 

 

Discussion after introduction

Similarly as said before, concluding a lesson is also important. Although I did not observe any unique way of how the teachers at SK Seafield 3 concluded their lesson besides saying ‘thank you’, I have a personal opinion of mine on how a lesson should be concluded and why it is important that every teacher should make it a point to conclude their lesson in a few sentences. A type of conclusion would be summarizing what we have taught for the day before leaving the class means that we are restating the lesson objectives. Summarization is the paraphrasing of a definition or criteria attributes of a concept (Smith & Ragan, 1999). It is important to paraphrase rather than restate verbatim so that the learners will pay attention to the meaning rather than the precise wording used. I would say that this is the simplest way to end a lesson but we will not know if the students have learned. Instead of the teacher giving a brief summary of the lesson, he or she could pick out a few students at random and ask them to summarize their understanding. By this way, we also get to check if the students have grasp the information provided for the day. A study by Doctorow, Wittrock & Marks (1978, in Weinstein & Mayer, 1986) showed that students who were asked to write summary sentences for each paragraph after they finished reading it outperformed students who did not receive instructions to generate summary sentences.

 

 

The conclusion is always done at the end of the lesson and is also known as the closure is that time after a new learning occurs when students reflect on what she now knows about the benchmarks and objectives that she may not have known before the lesson. Some suggested ways that can be used in the final three to seven minutes of class time that I can reflect back to what I have experienced in class are:

 

  • Have students discuss three important points from the day, what they have questions about and what more they want to learn.

  • Prepare an exit card that asks the to self-rate their understanding and write down one thing they would like to know more about.

  • Reinforce and review key vocabulary through the use of analogy and paraphrasing as part of your wrap up.

  • Post sentence starters for a final conversation or written activity: I wonder, I discovered, I still want to know, I learned, I still do not understand, I still have a question about, I will ask a friend about.

  • Complete a ‘Now I Know’ chart.

  • Provide an interesting or unexpected prompt to capture interest at the end of the class period.

 

 

References

 

Dewey, J. (1916), Democracy and Education. An introduction to the philosophy of education (1966 ed.). New York: Free Press.

 

Doctorow, M., Wittrock, M. C. & Marks, C. (1978). Generative processes in reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 109-118.

 

Smith, P., and Ragan, T. (1999). Instructional design (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

 

Weinstein, C. E. & Mayer, R. E. (1986) The teaching of learning strategies. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching. New York: MacMillan.

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