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Wrap it Up! Closing Activities for the End of the Semester

I love giving gifts during the holidays.  Wrapping them?  Not so much.  I don’t believe scientists have discovered a gene for wrapping gifts, but if so, I do not have it.  No matter how I try, the corners of the package come out uneven, the edges look like they were gnawed by a beaver, and I always end up with a stretch of extra wrapping paper that I fold into a trapezoid and smush onto the gift with a wad of scotch tape, hoping it will hold.  Fortunately, no one seems to mind a lousy wrapping job when they’re getting a present, and as the cliché goes, it's the thought that counts.

At the end of the semester, most of us are feeling ragged and worn down – like a poorly wrapped gift, if you will.  Still, thinking about ways we can end our courses with a simple but meaningful closing exercise is worth the energy.  A good “wrap up” exercise can help students appreciate what they accomplished with you, give them time to reflect on their learning, and leave them with a positive mindset heading into a final exam or paper.

As the Teaching Center at Brigham Young University notes, professors sometimes feel the temptation to cram a lot into the last day or two of classes, especially if they want to help students review for a final exam.  By this point in the semester, however, our students are just as exhausted as we are, so extensive review or coverage of material probably won’t help (although a few short review exercises can be quite helpful).  Instead, consider a short closing exercise that gives your course a sense of completion.  You can almost think of it as your “closing ceremony”, like the one the ends the Olympics.  Here are a few ideas:

• Letter to A Future Student:  Have students write short letters (or emails – even texts!) to an imagined student who might take your course in the future.  What are the most important things that student will learn in your course?  Or, what are the most important habits that will help them succeed in the course?  After students write, have them discuss key points from their letters.

• What Are You Taking With You?  Give each student an index card and ask them to write down three ideas, skills, or pieces of knowledge they want to take with them from your course to a future course.  (This works especially well in sequential courses.)  Students can compare their index cards with other students and look for commonalities.  

• Mini-Presentations:  My office mate Kate DiMarca does a closing exercise with her English Composition II students that helps them reflect on and share their learning.  Kate writes, “We sit in a circle and each student gives a brief synopsis of their final essay project out loud.  (The final essay is a personal essay, an autoethnography.)  I give them a handout beforehand with a list of questions and they prepare their answers ahead of time.  It’s great to have a show and tell aspect to this, too, with students bringing in an object that is connected to their essay.”  I love Kate’s method for ending class by letting students share not only their work, but something they learned to which they have a personal connection. 

• Student Recognition: Our colleague Mark Walsh borrows a tradition from Cambridge University and, after ending class, stands outside the doorway to shake each student’s hand and wish them well.  This strikes me as a kind, powerful way to recognize each student’s accomplishment of completing the course, and I imagine this a moment stays with Mark’s students for a long time. 

Even in an online course, closing exercises can be valuable.  While students may not get the benefit of interaction with classmates, the exercises still give them a chance to reflect on their most important learning and feel a sense of completion. 

While closing exercises can be effective, they shouldn’t require a lot of work or planning on our part.  (After all, we are exhausted too!)  But just as many of us use ice-breakers on the first day to set the tone of our class, we can use a closing exercise on the last day to end our semester on a positive note of reflection and accomplishment.  So take a deep breath, think about how you want to close out your course, and get ready to wrap it up!