Dear Colleagues,
The end of the semester is almost here! You are likely tired, overwhelmed with grading assignments and projects, and looking forward to the summer break.
This is my 42nd semester of teaching, and I still find myself muddling through this final phase! It is always a stressful time no matter how many times I have survived it. There are so many challenges instructors face as we wrap things up: 1) covering the entire syllabus with rigor; 2) dealing with missing assignments and requests for late submissions; 3) supporting struggling students both academically and emotionally; 4) designing a course review that is comprehensive and coherent, so students are inspired rather than overwhelmed; 5) determining the final letter grades, which is always an agonizing task!
While all these challenges will remain difficult, we must focus on the ultimate goal of teaching – helping students learn. We have done a lot this semester to guide students through the process of learning by designing our courses, structuring our lectures, engaging our students, creating welcoming office hour spaces, and implementing new teaching strategies. Here are some teaching tips we can implement to design and deliver the big finish:
Reflection:
- Take students back to the beginning. Review course topics, show connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, and identify the big ideas of the course.
- Encourage students to make the final push. Facilitate a class activity where students work together to integrate the course materials. Have them jointly create a study guide for the final. This helps students develop their metacognitive skills, and students who engage in metacognition improve their problem-solving abilities and performance on assessments [1].
- This allows students to submit one missed assignment during a 24-hour period at the end of the semester [2].
Inspiration:
- Remind students of UT’s core purpose, To transform lives for the benefit of society, and UT’s core values of learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. This serves to put things into perspective. All students, no matter how well they have performed in your class or what their course experience has been will be inspired by this message.
- Lead a class discussion on how your course fits into the big picture. We frequently get lost in the details, so remind students that this is just one course of the many they will take in their academic careers.
- Ask students to write a letter to future students with tips on how to be successful [3]. Share these letters with students in future offerings of this course.
Appreciation and Celebration:
- Thank students for their part in making the course a success. I make sure to reserve at least a few minutes in my last lecture to extend my gratitude to my students for being willing participants in my classroom, for tolerating any new teaching strategies I may have implemented, and for laughing at my jokes.
- Invite all your graduate teaching assistants and undergraduate learning assistants to the final lecture so that they can be part of the celebration. Encourage your students to thank all the assistants for their support.
- Take some time to celebrate as a class. This is the last time you will be together as a group in the classroom, so take this opportunity to walk around, shake hands, take pictures.
This is my final teaching tip as chair-elect of the Provost’s Teaching Fellows. I will transition to the role of chair this coming academic year. Writing these tips has been such an educational experience for me! It compelled me to reflect on all the different aspects of teaching and reminded me once again of how demanding, consuming, and exhilarating it can be! Thank you all for reading.
I would also like to thank all the Provost’s Teaching Fellows for their inspirational projects and initiatives. A big shout-out to Sarah Schoonhoven for editing these teaching tips, and overall amazing job of coordinating this program!
Sincerely,
