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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Tips from Your TCC


Planning Closure

We know that it is important for students to experience a sense of closure to their semester efforts. While teachers need to continue to present new information during the final weeks, they also need to provide students with a framework to help them remember how the course information fits together.

This tip offers some ideas to help you consider how you might build closure activities into your course.

Test Questions. If you use a comprehensive final, help students recall (and capture attention) by sharing potential test items drawn from material presented earlier in the course. At the end of each class, hand out several questions and discuss possible answers.

Extra Credit. Offer extra credit for students who provide overall summaries of the course. Allow some flexibility. Some students may summarize their efforts, others explain why it is personally meaningful. Accept posters, presentations, poems, or short essays. Encourage students to make brief presentations.

Top Ten. Ask your students to make a "Top Ten List" of important issues from the semester. Or, you might ask them to make a list of important ideas learned.

Time Capsule. Ask students to make a time capsule of the ideas, assignments, "ah-hah" moments they have had during the semester. Each student should bring something memorable (usually as a typed paragraph) from the course and an explanation of its importance.

Exhibit. If possible, plan time for students to exhibit their work from the semester.

Evaluation. Give students a checklist of topics addressed in the course. Ask them to evaluate how well they have learned each.

This Teaching Tip was first published by Indiana State University's, Center for Teaching and Learning on November 23, 1998. It was retrieved from <
https://www1.indstate.edu/cirt/facdev/tips/assessmentandgrading/planningclosure.html> on November 18, 2008.

Julie Damerell
Transitional Studies
11/20/2008