{"id":9820,"date":"2023-05-01T15:48:04","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T19:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/?page_id=9820"},"modified":"2023-05-09T16:56:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T20:56:46","slug":"use-the-last-day-of-class-well","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/use-the-last-day-of-class-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Use the Last Day of Class Well"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><strong>Wrapping up the semester<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What can you do to close out the semester productively for both you and your students? Eggleston and Smith (2002) remind us that planning the last day(s) of our course is as important as planning the first day. Designing activities that encourage reflection and a sense of achievement promotes both academic and emotional closure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here are a few suggestions:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Have students engage in a reflective activity in which they articulate their particular takeaways from your course.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ask students to make connections such as:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">between topics of your course<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">between your course and others they are taking<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">between your course and real-world experiences<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">between your course and a future career<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Have students write a letter of advice to your future students (and ask if you may share them), offering insights and tips for success.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Collective sharing: ask students to write 1-2 sentences about what they will most remember from the course; go around the room and share (or have students share on a discussion board), and then collectively look for key overlaps and divergences.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Share what <em>you<\/em> will remember about this class, and what you\u2019ve learned from your students (Weimer, 2016).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Students do not remember the details of what they learned in a course &#8212; they remember moments of deep learning and those aha moments in which new ideas resonate with old ones and discoveries are made. They also remember how they felt about themselves as learners and thinkers, and thus spending time reflecting on their growth as learners and thinkers can prompt continued growth in the semesters and years to come.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Have an idea to share? Please<\/span><a href=\"mailto:faculty@montclair.edu\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> let us know<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><div class=\"prpl-drawer\"><div class=\"prpl-drawer-header\">Resources and References<\/div><div class=\"prpl-drawer-content\">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eggleston, T. J., &amp; Smith, G. E. (2002, March 4). Parting Ways: Ending Your Course. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Observer<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Association for Psychological Science. https:\/\/www.psychologicalscience.org\/observer\/parting-ways-ending-your-course<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Weimer, Maryellen. (2016, April 13).The Last Class Session: How to Make It Count. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Faculty Focus. <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facultyfocus.com\/articles\/effective-teaching-strategies\/the-last-class-session-how-to-make-it-count\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/www.facultyfocus.com\/articles\/effective-teaching-strategies\/the-last-class-session-how-to-make-it-count\/<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> <\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">05.01.23 CK<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>For more information or help, please\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:faculty@montclair.edu\">email<\/a>\u00a0the Office for Faculty Excellence or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/montclair-faculty-excellence.libcal.com\/appointments\/\">make an appointment<\/a>\u00a0with a consultant.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/195\/2022\/08\/CC.png\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" width=\"80\" height=\"15\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nTeaching Resources by\u00a0<a rel=\"cc:attributionURL\" href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/\">ÌÇÐÄvlog Office for Faculty Excellence<\/a>\u00a0is licensed under a\u00a0<a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Third-party content is not covered under the Creative Commons license and may be subject to additional intellectual property notices, information, or restrictions. You are solely responsible for obtaining permission to use third party content or determining whether your use is fair use and for responding to any claims that may arise.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">Creative Commons CC BY-NC-4.0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wrapping up the semester What can you do to close out the semester productively for both you and your students? Eggleston and Smith (2002) remind us that planning the last day(s) of our course is as important as planning the first day. Designing activities that encourage reflection and a sense of achievement promotes both academic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328,"featured_media":9828,"parent":0,"menu_order":78,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9820","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9820"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9890,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9820\/revisions\/9890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}