Beginning & Ending Class Systems
Class Management Strategies for Starting and Ending Lessons
Jun 25, 2008
When students first enter your classroom, do they immediately get ready for class and begin working? At the end of class, do students leave their seats and crowd the door before the bell? If so, you need beginning-of-class and end-of-class systems.
Beginning of Class
When students first enter your classroom, what do you want them to do? Teach them a beginning-of-class system, the exact method for entering your classroom. Make it student-centered and student required. Perhaps they should retrieve their student folders, or set up their desks with specific supplies, and then complete a specific activity. During the opening activities each day, you will then be free to check homework and take attendance.
Tickets to Learn
One option for a beginning-of-class system is the ticket to learn. Create a ticket to learn sheet that remains in the classroom. This is important; you want students to come to class and have to retrieve their sheet from a file cabinet or bin. As students enter the room, they will immediately seek their ticket to learn sheets, and then automatically sit and begin working on it. No longer will you have to remind students to find their seat.
The ticket to learn activity is a warm-up activity; it should only take between 3-5 minutes. In an English class, the ticket to learn can simply be a sentence to edit; in a math class, it can be a review problem; in history class, it can be a three-sentence opinion on a current events topic; in elementary school, it can be copying correctly new spelling words.
The teacher has the option of creating a ticket to learn sheet with one question and answer space on it, or with a week’s worth of activities depending on the space required. If you choose to do a week’s worth, realize students will have to find their specific sheets each day.
It is your option of how to access tickets to learn. Counting them as class participation credit, along with the ticket to leave (below), works well with students. The goal here is to get students in their seats and focused without your constant prodding.
End of Class
The last five minutes of class are often wasted as students zone out, think about their next class, and anxiously wait for the bell. The last five minutes of class, however, are crucial to student understanding. Lessons need closure and summary. Create an end-of-class system, and students will always know that class is never over until this activity is complete. Instead of waiting for the bell, students will be waiting for you to check their responses.
Tickets to Leave
One option for an end-of-class system is the ticket to leave. Create a ticket to leave sheet on the back of the ticket to learn sheet. The ticket to leave sheet should simply be labeled “ticket to leave,” followed by blank lines or space.
During the last three minutes of class, announce that it is time for their tickets to leave. Students will already have their sheets from the opening activity. Then simply ask a question, and have students answer it in the space provided. Limit their answers to three to five sentences.
The question you ask will serve several purposes. It will force students to think and process what they learned that day, it will provide you with instant feedback on their progress, and it will teach them to think about the learning process. Administrators also love tickets to leave since it provides daily connections to student progress, opinions, emotions, expectations, and makes real world connections.
For example, you can ask students to:
- Summarize what they’ve learned
- Connect what they’ve learned to something in their life
- Describe how well they understood that day’s lesson
- Explain why today’s lesson was important
- Explain their grade on the last quiz or test
- Predict tomorrow’s lesson
- Predict their next grade on a test
- Rate a film or book on a scale from one to ten and explain why
- Pick their favorite character, or historical figure from a specific period, and explain why
- Give their opinion on a subject, including your teaching
The list is truly endless. The real point is that they cannot leave, even if the bell rings, until they are finished answering the ticket to leave question and it is approved and collected by you. Answers will vary, and it’s your job to be sure no one escapes without a reasonable response.
Creating beginning and ending class systems will provide instant structure to any classroom. For more ideas, see articles on classroom environment and other class management systems.
