the best classroom change I made this year

The best procedural addition to my classroom this semester has been having two students act as recap leaders at the beginning of class. I got this from Lang’s Small Teaching. They present a summary of what we discussed in the last session; we all have a moment to add or sharpen some feature of what was reported. Manifold goods: The room re-centers with a “where were we” reminder. I get to hear a week’s worth of metabolized information, which tells me a lot about what they heard and understood. We all hear the callbacks, so we increase the likelihood of making further references and connections as class proceeds, weaving a tighter semester as a group.