NUTSHELL NOTES "Teaching tips in a nutshell" - The University of Colorado at Denver's One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence

One final query that provides outstanding benefits has become known as the "One Minute Paper." The actual originator of the idea remains unidentified. Some say that the exercise began in Berkeley as a professor's initiative in taking attendance, and that the benefits only came to light as the students responded. Others attribute the origins to the work of Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo on classroom research that was published through the University of Michigan. Regardless, the idea has proven its worth in many classrooms.

This is an ungraded exercise and the query is simple — before the end of class, ask two questions.

1) What do you view as the most important thing that you learned today in this class?

2) What is the foremost question (concern) in your mind about today's material?

Students respond in writing for one minute and pass in their answers. It doesn't take long to see the benefits of students devoting the final minute of class to this. The answers reveal the degree to which students are truly identifying and understanding the central concepts of your topic. It also helps students to process what they have just learned before they break their trend of thought with another class. If students know that they are going to have to have to provide a thoughtful response, they have more incentive to pay attention and to ask questions.

Some professors find that the responses serve as a useful basis for starting the next class meeting with review and continuity. Others find that they can respond in writing to some queries and establish one-to-one dialog that might otherwise not exist in large classes. Reading students' responses does take some time, but not very much. Odds are good that the results will prove to be worth that time.

Be sure to structure your queries so that class does indeed end on schedule.