As we look toward the end of a lesson, a unit, or even a school year, we plan time to review the content. This often results in asking students questions (sometimes in creative ways to make the review a game or more fun). I love me a fun game for review, but when I think about the level of thinking in order for the review to be quick and teams to be able to take turns, it usually ends up being pretty low-level questions – recalling and regurgitating information. The other thing I often observe (ahem… and maybe did a lot as a teacher) during reviews (especially prior to a big assessment) is talk a lot. I never meant to talk my students’ ears off – I always started with a review game of some sort and then if a student got something wrong, or if we came to a topic I felt the class still didn’t fully understand, I would suddenly break into lecture mode for 5-10 minutes to tell them everything I wanted to make sure they knew about the topic. As if hearing me talk about it would cement it in their brains? I think we sometimes think if we make sure we tell them everything one more time before the big test, they’ll get it… but that is far from the truth.