Summary
The concluding weeks of the spring term are a unique opportunity to provide students with intentional closure while setting "Future You" up for a seamless transition next term. In this week’s tip, discover how to balance student-centered reflections with a practical technical audit to ensure your course is optimized for semesters to come.
Body
Review the pedagogical and technical information below to inform your progress in Week Fifteen. Have questions about what you learned here or ideas for future tips? Join Coffee & Answers (open support Zoom sessions with the Academic Technology Team) or email the Office of Teaching and Learning.
Pedagogical
How can we turn these remaining classes from focusing on the “finish line” into a strategic bridge for student connection?
The end of the semester is often bitter sweet. We may have connected with students who we will continue to work with in other classes. We may still be trouble-shooting individual students with complicated personal issues and attendance issues. For teachers and students alike, it’s a great time to gather information for future classes, reflect on what went well, and provide closure for students as they go on to their careers or other classes.
Here are a few ways to do this, beyond the standard, required course evaluation form:
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Exam review: You can review for your final exam, take questions from students, and brainstorm test taking or study skill strategies with them.
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What will you take forward? Another kind of discussion would be about what students will take forward from this course into their future lives and careers. While this might be particularly useful for professional courses, general education courses, too, can help students be forward thinking. This reminds them that school is not random individual courses, but also a complex patchwork of learning.
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What would you change about the course? Which assignments were most helpful for you? These questions are particularly helpful for you as you build and revise your future courses, and might give you valuable insight into what students found significant about your assignments.
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Mental Health Day: If you have the time, giving students a mental health day might serve both you and them. Give them an opportunity to meditate, craft or draw in preparation for the push of final exams. While they are engaging in these low key activities, you can meet with individual students both to offer encouragement and to remind students who are missing work what they are missing.
The possibilities for the last day of class are endless, but some intentional closure will help both you and students take the experience of this semester forward and learn from it.
Technical
What if you could give “Future You” a head start on next semester before you even leave for break?
The end of the semester is usually the time for feedback and ideas on how to improve the courses you just taught. To capture those ideas in a relevant space, consider leaving a page of Instructor Notes unpublished in your Canvas course. This means the notes will be right where you need them if you decide to copy course content into another semester. Now that you have time to take a breath, think about these things that can optimize your experience in Canvas in future semesters.
End of Semester Checklist:
🛠️ Course Mechanics
🔍 Course Review
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Audit Rubrics: Review rubric data to see if criteria were too vague or if certain benchmarks were consistently missed. Update rubrics as needed.
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Refresh Content: Add new materials or refine existing videos and presentations while the course flow is still fresh in your mind. Tip: Try using NotebookLM for multimedia inspiration or development.
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Level Up in Canvas: Explore additional features of Canvas to enhance course dynamics for next year.
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Peer Inspiration: Connect with colleagues to learn what other instructors are doing in their courses.
Additional Resources
Are these tips helpful? Do you have a topic we should include in future weeks? Please let us know by emailing otl@sju.edu!