Awards at End of Class

 OTHER TIPS: AWARDS AT END OF CLASS

Awards at End of Class

Shared by:

Yarma Velazquez-Vargas, Chicana/o Studies

Materials needed:

Papers, glue, markers, and craft materials

Learning challenge addressed/predictable outcome:

Community building and end of class reflections.

I started these awards to:

  • summarize the content of the class
  • give closure to a semester
  • get students to understand that what they say and do in class matters and others remember and learn from them as much as from the instructor

Best used for:

Face-to-Face courses. This is a great activity to get students to reflect on the class and what they learned. It also gives them an opportunity to reflect on their contribution to the class.

Learning objectives/skills fostered:

  • Improving public speaking skills
  • Extending thinking by sharing what they’re thinking
  • Exploring critical thinking skills
  • Increased synthesis of material

What to do/how to do it:

  1. During the last day of instruction have students get into groups. Each group is responsible for designing two awards for the class and cannot give any member of their own group an award. The students are asked to reflect on the contributions of other students in the class and come up with categories, such as “most improved," “best student presentation," “most interesting questions,” “most significant contribution."
  2. Students should create a physical award, use their creativity to present and introduce the winners. During the presentation students most explain why they came up with the category and why they choose the winner.
  3. The student that receives the award has to give a brief speech expressing their gratitude.
  4. The class ends with a discussion of what we can take from a class, how can we impact others with our work and lessons learned from a semester.

Tips for implementing:

Ask students to keep it positive, there is a temptation to give awards to “always late” or “class clown” but you want to focus on the good.