Today we are sharing a quick, interactive content review strategy. This strategy will help students to review new content and to apply and integrate new content with what they already know. Students will work together in small groups to enrich and extend their individual knowledge.
This strategy works in any subject area and with any grade level as long as students can write a question and discuss with others. It can be used to review content from a single lesson or entire semester or year.
Students like this strategy because it gives them autonomy. They not only get to write questions, but they also get to work together with their peers to discuss. Teachers like it because it does not require a lot of preparation and yet it allows students to engage in active learning.
This activity can be a ten or fifteen minute quick review, or could evolve into an entire class period.
Directions:
Give students an index card or have them take out a sheet of paper. Ask them to write a question for other students to answer and discuss.
Here are some guidelines for writing good questions. You can adapt them for the age of the student:
Ask a real question that requires students to think about the content they have learned.
Write questions about important content such as main ideas, new concepts, processes or sequences, rather that tricky “gotcha” questions.
Write questions that cannot be answered with one word.
Write questions that require students to apply information or give examples.
Write questions that ask about new vocabulary.
Write questions that are answered with a fact, or questions that require some discussion.
Collect the students’ questions. You can also mix in some of your own questions. Shuffle them up and give them to small table groups. The groups then read and discuss the answers.
At the end of the activity, be sure to give students an opportunity to ask any questions that they couldn’t answer or that need further clarification. You can also highlight a couple of good questions that you heard as you wandered around the room or clear up any misconceptions that emerged in the discussion.
To extend the activity:
After students have had a chance to answer the questions, ask them to make a list of three important things they discussed.
Ask students to get up and find someone who was not in their original group. Give them a minute or two to share their notes. Then repeat the process several times. It is fun to use a buzzer, white board countdown or other fun noise maker to call “time.”
This is an easy to implement content review strategy and we hope that you will give it a try. Let us know how it goes, we always like hearing from teachers.
Our Best,
P.S. Here are some other posts with strategies you might want to try:
4 Great Active Learning Strategies for all Content Areas
Mix and Match Active Learning Strategy
Leave a Reply