So you have reached the end of your semester! Almost time for Spring Break! In the final weeks of class, whether online or face to face, things can get hectic. Students are finishing final projects. Teachers are grading final papers and have to submit final grades by the end of the week. If you are teaching an online class, you also have to contend with finding closure for the class for your students.
What do you include in that final discussion forum?
Many students are relieved that class is finally ending. They are also glad they made it to the end. I always put in evaluation/reflection questions in the last discussion forum. I ask them questions like: How did you like my teaching? What advice would you give future students taking this class? How can this class be improved?
Reflection Questions in End of Class Discussions
As a course that's coming to a close and winding down, is easy to focus on assessing and greeting students and forget the value of a good closing experience. In the final weeks of a course, students are likely to be stressed and somewhat overwhelmed by the remaining work. In this state, they often do not pause and make the lists and do the planning they can to help reduce stress and provide a calming atmosphere. And of course end of class experiences often include student presentations, summaries, and analysis. These reports and presentations provide insights into what useful information knowledge students are taking away from a course. At the same time, these learning events can provide a final opportunity for faculty to remind students of core concepts and fundamental principles. This end of course experiences are a good time to use live classrooms, YouTube and other synchronous collaborative tools. (Conrad, 57)
Some more reflection questions you can ask students according to Conrad:
- Debriefing techniques; what one change would students recommend?
How can I know which course experiences really make a difference in learning and which one are duds?
What are some strategies for encouraging students to help improve future courses?
What was the best, or very best, worst experience-reading activity project and discussion for you personally? And why?
What would you have liked to study in more detail or explore more widely?
What course activity do you strongly recommend to keep for the next offering of this class? Why?
What one change would you recommend?
What did you enjoy or not enjoy about this class? Should there be more videos audio group activities? (Conrad, 302)
Take Away Lessons for Students To Remember
Johnson suggests creating a final discussion forum as a place for students to share their takeaways from the semester. This is an excellent way to integrate reflective learning into the course while bringing a sense of closure. Better yet, make this a required integral element in your course design. Within your discussion prompt, asked students to share how the course has impacted their personal professional and personal lives. (Johnson, 47) What take away lessons should the student take with him/her as she exits your class? The last forum is a good place to give a summary or graphic organizer of major themes/core concepts you want students to take away from the class.
Use What if scenarios in your final forum
Using 'What if' scenarios helps students better integrate the core concepts one final time into the students' knowledge base. Besides, 'what if' scenarios are fun to do engaging the students' reflective and analytic side of the brain.
"Use what if scenarios to generate conversation. What if scenarios generally pose a question inquiring about a possible ripple effect of a significant event that has either not happened or happened differently, as an alternate history example presented earlier or what might happen in the future such as varying scenarios of the future of healthcare in the United States. What if scenarios are a specific type of problem-solving experience that indicates role-playing activities, still simulations and case studies. These types of activities engage students in both an intellectual and emotional level. These activities require higher cognitive workload as they research, evaluate and analyze, make decisions, observe results, and then make decisions dealing with the consequences of earlier decisions." (Conrad, 280)
Reinforce Core Concepts
As per the learning models, the final weeks of the class shows the student's growing sophistication in the core concepts of the class as the student advances from concrete knowledge in the beginning and middle weeks to more abstract/analysis/synthesis/evaluation/reflection skills in the latter weeks of the class. The teacher's role changes from being the sage on the stage at the beginning of the class to the learner becoming an independent learner capable of applying what he has learned to create projects or write that final research paper to show he has synthesized that material or encoded that material into his long term memory. As I grade my students' final projects, I can take pride in how much my students have mastered the core concepts in the class.
" In the closing weeks the principal themes for learners in the closing weeks are learner independent, learners reflecting on course knowledge, and completing the course projects and assignments. The major themes for the instructor are mentoring the students and how they applied for concepts and relationships, and coaching the learners in their projects and assignments. By the time work on course projects is well underway, and discussion in the project forum should reflect learners growing sophistication an understanding of coarse knowledge and concepts. Projects and related complex scenarios generally reflect learners progress toward identifying potential strategies for addressing difficult course or discipline issues"(Conrad, 97)
Employ Culminating Assignments to Assess Student Mastery of Material
Culminating assignments can bring a sense of closure to the course, and are excellent ways to assess your student learning. Some examples of culminating assignments are: portfolios, integrative papers, panel discussions, reflection on a real life experience, timelines and many projects. Kallmann aiding activities can become cumbersome so consider scaling down scaling them down for your students. The power in these assignments Is that they tend to move your students into higher order thinking skills and contain both reflective and integrative components. This should be developed throughout the class. (Johnson, 48)
Concept Mapping
Have students create a concept map of what they can take away from the class. What is a concept map? A concept map is a way of representing relationships between ideas, images, or words. This is important as course outcomes rely on students constructing knowledge representations. (Conrad, 286) Students love looking at each other's concept maps since each student has his own unique experience of the class and takes away different core concepts. When students look at others' concept maps, they learn how others have integrated those same core concepts into their knowledge base thus reinforcing what they have learned in an engaging interesting manner.
Concluding email
Write a concluding email congratulating students on finishing the class and write a final wrap up of core concepts so students have a summary wrap up of the whole experience. Congratulate high achieving students by name and thank them for participating in the forums and being such good students. You can also send encouragement to lower grade students as well to uplift the morale of struggling students. Also, a concluding email shows you care about them after the course is over. You can include possible social media groups students can join so students can continue talking about the core concepts learned in the class or direct students to student organizations they can join that relate to your class. By adding this additional info, students can feel final closure to the class and learn more on how they can apply the core concepts of the class to their lives and most importantly, it also teaches students how to be life long learners long after your class is over.What students like best about a class are the enduring relationships and friendships they make with other classmates and with the teacher.
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