A Time to Consolidate and Connect
The teaching showcase is today! Please join us in the Strozier library basement to celebrate your own and your colleagues’ outstanding teaching. There will be a social hour with refreshments from 11:45–12:45, and the program starts at 1:00. We will observe a moment of silence together at noon, in commemoration of the tragic events of last April 17. We hope to be in community with as many of you as possible when the bells ring. Whether or not you’re able to be there, we will be thinking of you.
With only a week of classes remaining, if we’re feeling behind, we may be tempted to race through content we didn’t manage to cover earlier in the term. But this time of year, students are focused on projects and exams, and are unable to process much new material.
At any point in the semester, we know that the more content we try to race through, the less students actually learn. To learn deeply, they need opportunities to think, to analyze, to apply concepts, and to develop skills through practice and feedback. With only a few days left in the semester, students need to consolidate what they’ve learned and feel prepared to make use of it in the future.
It’s also useful for us to reflect on what we hoped our students would learn this semester. Returning to the course goals can help us plan a final class session that brings the semester to a meaningful close. We can help students reflect and strengthen their memories with wrap-up activities that prompt them to reflect on and make meaning of their learning. An effective closing activity will help students recognize how much they’ve learned this spring and consider what they want to keep on learning; it can reinforce the value and relevance of the material they’ve studied. It can also acknowledge the sense of loss they (and we) may feel when our time together comes to an end.
The closing of a course is a good time for synthesis. Since learning must build upon prior knowledge, students need to solidify the connections they’ve made between old ideas and new. January probably seems like a lifetime ago to most of our students, so it may be useful to revisit the syllabus, asking them to evaluate their attainment of the learning goals, or summarize the central concepts of the course. You might also encourage them to think about how they might use what they’ve learned in the future, in their coursework, their careers, or in civic life.
The end of a course can also present an opportunity to self-assess, which can be good preparation for final exams. When students are reflecting on what they’ve learned, they can also identify a few areas they still want to practice, clarify, or review in preparation for finals week. An activity in which they take inventory of what they know well and what they still want to study can be followed by a reminder that some study strategies work much better than others.
As Boettcher points out, “a well-designed ending of a course provides opportunities for reflection and integration of useful knowledge. It is also a time to wrap up positive social and cognitive experiences.” To emphasize the social element of class closure, some faculty thank their students for their effort and openness in the course; some shake hands with each student. Some classes make mementos of their learning or their community, or end the term with a celebration where they share their work. Some colleagues ask students to compose letters of advice to future students of the class, reflecting on the course, what they did to succeed in it, and the effectiveness of their methods. Some faculty actually share these letters with the next semester’s students. We want students to end the semester proud of what they’ve accomplished and excited about building on what they’ve learned.
If you’d like support as you plan for the end of the semester, please email us at pro-teaching@fsu.edu. We look forward to working with you.