Starting Class with a Recap
When we’re designing our courses, most of us sequence the topics, assignments, and activities to build on one another. This approach tends to work well because our courses are also a series of experiences through which students construct knowledge and develop skills over time. Between class meetings, though, students take several other courses and live full lives as well. When they arrive back in class, they may not recall exactly what they were working on during the last session, much less earlier in the semester. Starting with a brief recap helps to activate and reinforce prior knowledge, so they can make connections.
In his book Small Teaching, James Lang explains the importance of remembering:
Thus, another benefit of starting class with a recap is that it can give students opportunities for retrieval practice. When they practice recalling pertinent information from the class, they get better at retrieving that information when they need it again, like on a quiz or an exam. For this to happen, though, the instructor can’t be the one to provide the recap; we need to prompt students to provide it, so they have the opportunity to recall and think about the information.
Lang suggests that the simplest way to do this is to begin class with questions that students can respond to either orally or in writing. You might ask them to recall topics or work done in the previous session or in several parts of the course. Even better than asking them to simply recall, you can ask them to think more deeply, for example by making connections or organizing information into main ideas and related details. The recap could take the form of a brief discussion, or if you want to make sure all students are getting retrieval practice (and not just the ones most comfortable speaking), you can ask them to respond to the question(s) first on a notecard, or make it a Padlet or a survey in Canvas that students respond to on devices at the beginning of class. Providing a moment to think and to write can also help them feel more prepared to participate in a discussion.
If students have difficulty doing this recall at first, Lang encourages us not to give up on it:
If starting class with some writing or a brief discussion doesn’t fit best for your teaching context, you might find another method of helping students remember and build on what they’ve been learning in the class: low-stakes quizzes, Kahoot games, clicker questions, concept maps, small group activities, brief student-made recap videos, or something else. As our colleagues at Yale put it, “The ‘first five minutes’ is often heralded as the most crucial, and underappreciated, moment to promote student motivation and engagement.” We can use opening questions to draw our students into the class.If you’d like support to design recaps that will prompt your students to recall information and build on what they’ve been learning, we’re happy to help. You can contact us at pro-teaching@fsu.edu. We look forward to working with you!
UPCOMING EVENTS
Provost’s Showcase of Scholarly Teaching
Friday, April 4th | 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. | SSB 201/203 | More details on our website
We’re delighted to announce that CAT and FSU Libraries will host the second annual Provost’s Showcase of Scholarly Teaching on April 4th, 2025. This event is an opportunity for you to share your teaching expertise and innovations with the larger campus community. Even if you’ve never thought about presenting at a pedagogical conference before, you likely have strategies and insights that could be of benefit to colleagues. We invite you to apply to host a roundtable discussion or present a poster.
If you would like to submit a proposal, please fill out our Application Form. The application due date is January 31, 2025. We look forward to working with you!