Coming Together

The end of the semester puts special demands on both students and teachers just at the time when their energy is drained and stresses are beginning to build. While we need a little extra help from each other, we all begin to concentrate on getting ourselves through our own final chores. Instead of getting swept up in the malaise of the last few weeks, teachers can adjust their lessons and find a source of inspiration and direction.

Donna Duffy and Janet Jones* warn of two enemies during the final period of the semester: dissolution and stress. In a couple weeks we will explore tips for helping students deal with stress. This week's tips focus on ways to use this time to directly address the issues created by the approaching end of your class. This is a time when the tendency is for things to fly apart rather than come together. It's when so much attention to the trees has allowed us to lose sight of the forest. By planning activities that help pull things back together, the teacher can create a positive way to end the semester. Try to develop some activity that shifts students away from minutia toward the big picture during the last weeks of the school year.

* Teaching within the Rhythms of the Semester. SF: Jossey Bass (1995).

Organizing

More than new information, students need to find some way to organize the material they have learned throughout the course. By developing an organizer, teachers review prior knowledge and help students build intellectual connections between seemingly disparate bits of knowledge. This is a great help in preparing for finals or completing projects. Here are some strategies.

Concept Maps. Have teams of students draw graphic maps that link together the main concepts covered in the course. Some may create formal hierarchical charts; others more creative road maps; still others may list ideas chronologically. As teams share their maps, various ways of organizing key ideas will be reinforced in multiple ways. Call the CIRT for additional information.

Order Trees. The main ideas in a course can be charted along various branches. Give students a generic conceptual tree (with a few branches to organize main terms) and ask them to re-draw the branches. Again, teamwork is an effective tool and sharing helps everyone compare different ways to organize. The CIRT can send you a sample of this process at work.

Guided Design. For some subjects the procedures to be followed are better organizers than concept outlines. Develop a set of steps that would lead students through material (such as analyzing an issue by examining each of the areas covered in your course). Contact us and we will send you a nice example of this strategy.

If you are scrambling to squeeze in the last bit of information, try to introduce it as part of these organizing activities.

Synthesizing

Going a step beyond organizing content, the teacher can ask students to pull the course material together to develop new insights.

Reflection. Ask students, "What do I know now that I didn't know before as a result of this class?" Reflections can be private writing assignments or public (allow time for small group discussion).

Generative Questions. Some questions go beyond information to tap deeper themes. These have the ability to pull ideas together and show the power of thoughtful work. Begin to introduce these questions in your class and encourage students to engage them using the range of knowledge they've acquired over the semester. These questions are especially potent when they reach across several disciplines. For more details, contact the CIRT for a summary of generative approaches.

Connecting

In the beginning of a course students need to see that there will be some relevance to their lives. Revisiting this question at the end of the course helps students recognize how their efforts will soon allow them to understand and act more confidently.

Volunteers? Ask students to reflect on settings where they could be volunteers and contribute the knowledge that they have learned this semester. How would they share their new knowledge? How might it help some agency or individual?

Personally. Connect your content to other parts of personal life. Peter Frederick uses students' stories to help students integrate cognitive material with their physical, emotional, and spiritual lives. Ask students for stories from their lives and ask of how this knowledge would have helped. Personal stories that are re-examined using course material can become fertile starting points for written reflections or group discussions that integrate course content into the learners' growing lives.

Final Comments

As students realize they will be leaving your classroom, their friends, (and maybe your subject matter) soon, they naturally wonder what use it has been to put in all this work. Teachers who have prepared activities to help them organize, synthesize, and connect, will offer the kind of lesson that answers their doubts and concerns. Students will see why putting in a last, best effort makes a good deal of sense. Next week: some advice on how to plan finals so that they are crafted learning experiences that complete the job of connecting lessons and lives.

This Teaching Tip was first published by Indiana State University’s, Center for Teaching and Learning on April 14, 1997.