As the calendar year comes to a close most teachers are breathing a cool and collective sigh of relief. With their classrooms packed up for the winter break, they now have the opportunity to put their feet up and relax.

Or, let’s be real, create plans for the next year.

A teacher’s job is never complete and the winter holidays are often filled with reflection and general curriculum overhaul. With activities and field trips still fresh in everyone’s mind, teachers often find themselves asking, “Have my students really retained anything this year?”

Yes, motivation in those precious few weeks before the winter break can be likened to running a marathon in the mud. Thankfully, there are so many easy-to-use programs that can make cumulative review a fun team building exercise.

Biteslide’s platform is adaptable, making it applicable to a variety of curriculum areas. It is also easy to share meaning that students can work together in a variety of ways to create anything from peer reviewed test questions to projects for the students to look at the following year.

Here are three ways in which you can integrate both Biteslide and teamwork methods into your end of the unit (or end of the year) lesson plans.

1. Peer Reviewed Games and Test Questions

Reviewing for a test can become an insurmountable drag with incredible speed. (And not just for the students!) Of course you can load them down with the review questions at the end of the unit but do you really want to read hundreds of scribbly notebook pages?

Alternatively, Biteslide can be used by the students to create a pool of review questions that are tailored to their specific needs. Start by taking a pretest to identify particular areas of struggle.

After you have your target areas, assign particular questions to each student or group of students and have them create a shareable project that can be added together for a cumulative review session.

Encourage your students to find interesting bites – pictures and videos that make the presentation interesting and memorable. As the students develop their presentations, pull specific slides for test questions.

2. Writer’s Workshop and Story Building

Although we have touched upon this before, Biteslide is an excellent resource for writer’s workshop classes.

The slides are easy to save and share. For many students, the added ability to incorporate pictures into their slides makes the writing process fun and much easier to visualize.

English classes can use Biteslide to create progressive stories in which each individual adds to the previous slide so that they can build a unique story that can showcase a particular skill or strategy.

Bites are easy to search for and will add fluidity to the story. It is a fun exercise to tag on to the beginning or end of a lesson as part of a review.

3. A Letter for Next Year

For an end of the year project that will hopefully keep your middle schoolers from rolling their eyes, have the students create individual slides that can be put together for next year’s class. Slide ideas can include:

• Introductions
• Favorite projects
• Rules that are important to follow
• Favorite field trips
• Tips and Tricks for success
• What they will or will not miss about that particular grade level

Biteslide is a multi-use platform that can be bent and shaped to your classrooms particular needs. Whether it is the end of the year or the end of a unit, technology-based review that can encourage team-based projects is an excellent addition to traditional forms of review. It is easy for you to view and assess and allows students to really take ownership of their lessons and overall success.

Have any excellent ways that you use Biteslide for review? We would love to hear from you!

Kathryn Rose is a full-time educator turned full-time mom and writer focusing on parenting and educational topics. After completing her Elementary Education Certification through North Park University, she taught middle school Social Studies in Chicago, IL. She still teaches part-time and loves putting together engaging lesson plans and activities that keep kids engaged and moving.