Keep, Add, Takeaway

Contributed by:

Musostudy

Intended Learning Outcome:

To identify learning from a session

Tool:

This activity is useful to help students identify what they learnt/appreciated in a session. The beauty of Keep, Add, Takeaway is that it can be used in a variety of formats and it can be applied for different purposes to keep it fresh.

Two ways are suggested here:

One application is to ask for comments on the session itself. For example:

• What would you KEEP in the session in terms of what elements you liked? (e.g., more links to articles / more use of online quizzes)

• What would you ADD? (e.g more time in breakout rooms/small groups)

• What will you TAKEAWAY? this could be what you would take away as new learning but also could be interpreted as what you felt really didn’t work in the session.

Another is on the information/learning they experienced, acknowledging what they already had that has been confirmed (KEEP), what is new (ADD) and of that, what information they will TAKEAWAY and start using.

A third way is KEEP – to consider what knowledge they already had, ADD what was new to them and will be useful, and what they will TAKEAWAY (what information they previously held which they have now amended or needs to be discarded in favour of something new).

As well as being a useful metacognitive activity, it is also a useful feedback tool – giving students and teacher an opportunity to reflect on the session and discuss what happens next.

Activity:

At the end of a session or activity, explain what ‘Keep, Add, Takeaway’ represents and ask students their response to each (this could be solo or in small group discussions).

Ask students what is surprising about this and what they will now do as a result.

You may wish to link this to planning activities to help students review and revise practice routines, timelines for a piece of work or for understanding their own learning strategies.

How:

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Examples:

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Large Group Teaching:

With large groups, you can either run this as a solo activity and then put students into groups to discuss/adjust their decisions or you could have small group discussions which contribute to a whole class activity, comparing what are the common themes in each of the 3 sections.

Online Teaching:

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Success:

Students are aware of their own learning and are able to judge what knowledge/skills they have that are useful and what need to be taken away, as well as discerning what new learning is most relevant to them.

Next Steps:

Links this to other self-awareness and learning to learning activities, such as the Unconscious Competence and Go With The Flow TLAs.

Links to other activities:

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Acknowledgements:

This TLA was submitted by Balraj Samrai and is based on a model often used in youth work.

Resources:

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