Anticipatory Set and Closure
How will an effectively-designed lesson
begin?
Anticipatory set.
(My question was this lesson's AS.)
DEFINITION:
A brief activity or event at the beginning of the lesson that
effectively engages all students' attention and focuses their
thoughts on the learning objective.
What is the purpose of an AS?
- To involve all students, focus everyone's attention, whet
appetites.
- To make sure everyone's on the train, and knows where it's
going, before it leaves the station.
- Bait the hook in order to catch the fish.
- Also needed after interruptions, to refocus attention on the
learning objective.
How long is AS?
As long or short as necessary.
What does AS include?
- The anticipatory set should be designed to have direct
relevance to the instructional objective, whether that objective
is implied or stated in the set.
- AS may include review of significant or related information to
establish continuity with previous lessons;
allusion to familiar frames of reference; or
demonstrations to ground the lesson in concrete
operations.
- AS provides students with a label for the
lesson; vocabulary, name, title, overall direction or context for
the objective of the lesson.
- AS allows the student to know which hook on the hat-rack to
reach for when recall of the lesson may be needed.
Methods:
Question(s); demonstration (especially one with a result the students
do not expect); story or anecdote; shock; humor; pertinent news item;
role-playing; modelling/visualization; quiz. Be creative in planning
your anticipatory sets!
Would this be an accurate definition of AS?
To initially focus learner attention on a problem in a way that
captures their interest.
The above question was "closure."
Closing a Lesson
Definition:
A natural stopping point in the lesson or especially at its end,
which points back to the objective and captures its relevance to the
unit. Closure keeps the big picture in view, either by relating the
objective to other fields or topics, or by raising a related question
to ponder in anticipation of the next lesson. Closure ensures that
the objectives are met and applied, as students reapply or label the
lesson for themselves.
Closure:
- Closure is NOT a summary or recapitulation of the
lesson! If a summary is necessary, at the very least let
students do it.
- Closure is a commencement of life in light of the lesson. With
closure you pass the torch to the learners, who are now the doers
and teachers of the objective.
- Closure is not a teacher activity, but an act of the
learner. Students internalize the lesson in closure;
verbalize it to themselves or to each other for increased
retention and to facilitate transfer.
- Closure refocuses students' attention on the objective.
Answering a question related to the objective, or performing an
activity that confirms mastery of the objective gives students the
opportunity to recognize what they have learned.
- Closure is like looking back upon the trail so that one knows
which way one has come. The lesson may have made perfect sense as
long as the teacher was leading the class; closure is necessary to
ensure that the learners have become future teachers, able to lead
other learners along the same trail.
Purpose:
- To ensure effectiveness of learning (not thoroughness of
presentation).
- To allow students to demonstrate their successful engagement
of the lesson.
- If a summary is necessary, ask students to do it.
- Students reapply lesson; internalize or verbalize it for
retention and transfer (the latter makes for effective closure
questions).
- Keep the big picture; associate title or name of lesson with
concepts learned.
- To make sure they know which train they were on, and where
they have got off.
Planning effective closure activities takes time! Don't save it
until later: build it into the lesson plan. Never give up on a lesson
and quit before some kind of closure activity.
Can closure be effectively accomplished if a teacher
lectures right up to the bell?
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