Last Day of Class: How to End with Intention
Most of us put a lot of thought into the first day of class. We think carefully about the syllabus, the icebreakers or opening activities that excite students about our class, the tone we want to set. The last day rarely gets the same attention.
And so courses often end the way they began–with logistics. Sometimes there’s a rushed review or a few reminders about the final. But, for a semester’s worth of work and time spent together, it’s not much of an ending and often feels like a big letdown for both us and our students. As Maier & Panitz (1996) describe it, students “slink out of the room after a final exam, often deliberately avoiding any farewell exchange with the instructor”.
Research on teaching and learning suggests this matters more than we might think. How we close a course shapes how students consolidate what they’ve learned. It can influence whether they leave with a sense of completion and forward momentum, or just another checkbox on a long list of classes they have to take. Most courses, as Lee (2019) puts it, “end with a whimper rather than a bang.”
Like when writing, you should think of your course as a story. It should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That ending is where everything comes together. A well-planned last day gives students a chance to reflect on how they’ve grown, connect the material to their lives beyond the classroom, and feel genuinely recognized for the work they put in (Murray, 2008). Burgess-Van Aken (2017) suggests thinking of it like a commencement ceremony, something that marks the occasion and prepares students to move on.
You don’t need to overhaul anything. Even one or two intentional activities can make a real difference on that last day. The categories below cover different purposes a last day can serve. You don’t need to pick one from each (nor should you!). Most instructors build a session around one or two that fit their course, their students, and the time they have.
Tip:
Plan your last day at the beginning of the semester. The best time to think about how your course will end is before it starts: before you’re tired, behind on grading, or you feel like students have checked out. You don’t need every detail. Just be sure to make space on your course schedule and pencil in some time on your own calendar during the semester to think about what you want students to walk away feeling and knowing.
Some of the activities below also work as bookends. They start on day one and pay off on the last day. If you’re interested in this approach, identify the activity you want to use early and build it into your course plan from the start.
Look Back: Reflecting on Learning
Students are actually better positioned to revisit course goals and objectives at the end of a semester than at the beginning. They finally have the context to make sense of them (Burgess-Van Aken, 2017). These activities create space for that reflection: what did they learn, how did they change, and what surprised them along the way.
Sometimes the simplest approach is the most effective. Give students a few minutes to write in response to one or more of the following, then open it up for discussion (Brookfield, 2017; Davis, 2009; Lang 2021, cited in Himelein, 2021):
- I used to think _____, but now I think _____.
- I used to _____, but now I will _____.
- One thing I was surprised to learn in this class was _____. I was surprised because _____.
- If someone asked you, “What did you learn in this class?” how would you respond?
- If you could share one idea from this course with others, what would it be and why?
- What did you expect to learn in this course? Did you?
- Have you changed your opinions or views as a result of this course? Why or why not?
- As a result of this course, what is something you learned about yourself?
- What would you do differently if you could do the course over again?
- What new actions will you take to enhance your learning in future courses?
- One thing I would still like to learn more about is _____.
- What material from this class will be most helpful to you in the future?
- When were you most engaged as a learner?
Another option is to ask students to write down the three most important ideas or concepts they learned, or skills they developed. After a few minutes, invite volunteers to pick one item on their list and explain it to the class (Lang, 2006). In smaller classes, everyone can share.
Write two or three reflection prompts on separate sheets of poster paper and tape them around the room. Students circulate silently, writing responses and reading each other’s comments. Close with a whole-class debrief. It’s low-pressure, gives quieter students a voice, and usually surfaces things that wouldn’t come up in a regular discussion (Brookfield, 2016, cited in Himelein, 2021). Don’t forget to photograph the posters and share them with your students.
Ask students to draw their journey through the course on a sheet of paper (no artistic ability required!). They can use images, arrows, timelines, whatever feels right. Have them share in small groups or with the whole class (Rudenga, 2024). It sounds simple, but the conversations it generates tend to be surprisingly rich.
Ask students to pull up a piece of work from early in the semester, mark it up, and reflect on how their thinking has changed since they wrote it. This works especially well in courses where students have developed a specific skill such as writing, analysis, or lab techniques, and can actually see their own growth on the page (Rudenga, 2024).
Have students design a sticker they might put on their laptop or water bottle that captures something they learned in the course. Share them with the class. It’s a light, creative way to end and the constraint of a small sticker forces students to distill their thinking in a way that longer reflection prompts sometimes don’t.
Ask students to complete the sentence “I am becoming a student who…” ten different ways. If you want to extend the impact beyond the last day, collect the responses and mail them back to students at the start of the following semester as a reminder of who they were becoming (Maier & Panitz, 1996).
On the first day of class, have students write their expectations, and maybe their fears, on an index card. Collect them, and return them on the last day. Students reread their own cards and reflect on what changed (Murray, 2008).
A variation: have students write personal goals for the course on the first day instead. Returning those on the last day and asking students to reflect on whether they achieved them can be a genuinely moving exercise, especially when students realize how much they’ve grown (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.; Lang, 2006; Maier & Panitz, 1996)
Look Forward: Connecting Learning to What’s Next
These activities help students think about where the course is taking them. They ask students to consider how what they’ve learned connects to future courses, their careers, and their lives outside the classroom.
Put students in pairs. One plays a job interviewer who has just spotted the course on the candidate’s transcript: “I see you took [course name]. Tell me what you learned.” The other answers on the spot. After a few minutes, have pairs share their responses with the class. It’s a surprisingly effective way to help students identify and articulate their key takeaways (and good practice for conversations they’ll actually have!) (Rudenga, 2024; Weimer, 2016b).
Ask students to think about their learning through the lens of integrity and intention. What might they now be ready to say yes to: in their work, their thinking, their behavior? And just as importantly, what might they now be ready to say no to? This works well as a brief writing prompt followed by a class discussion (Uhl, 2005).
Ask students to identify a piece of media (a film, TV show, podcast, news story, or song) and connect ideas from the course to it and then share with the class. This works particularly well in courses that deal with social, cultural, or ethical questions, where students can draw connections to things they already care about (Lang, 2006).
Have students make a concrete plan to continue their learning beyond the course. This might mean identifying a follow-up course, putting together a reading list, or finding a podcast on the subject. It’s a small thing, but it signals that the learning doesn’t have to stop here (Silberman, 2006). For students who are especially engaged with the material, you might share your own recommendations for what class or steps to take next (Murray, 2008).
Bring in a guest from the field, a practitioner, researcher, or recent graduate, who can speak to how the course material shows up outside the classroom. This works best when the speaker can be specific about their own experience rather than giving a general overview. It’s a concrete answer to the question students are always quietly asking: why does this matter? This one requires advance planning, so if it appeals to you, build it into your course schedule early (Murray, 2008)
Have students reflect on how the course has helped them develop skills that extend beyond the subject matter. Skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, or ethical reasoning. Ask them to share with the class. If your institution has a framework for learning outcomes or core competencies, this is a natural moment to connect the dots between the course and those broader goals (Murray, 2008).
At the start of the semester, give students a short quiz (graded for completion only) with questions like: What do you know about [course topic]? What skills do you hope to develop? What reasons justify making this a required course? Keep their responses, and on the last day, have them answer the same questions again. Return their original responses and give them a few minutes to compare. The gap between who they were on day one and who they are now is usually more visible than they expect (Weimer, 2016b).
Pull It Together: Integrating Course Content
When you’ve been moving through material unit by unit, it’s easy for students to lose sight of how it all connects. These activities ask them to step back and see the larger picture: the relationships between ideas, the through-lines, the bigger questions the course was asking.
Have students create a visual map of the relationships between the major concepts and ideas from the course. This can be done individually, in pairs, or in small groups. If you’re looking for something more structured and whole-class, the Content Web activity below might be a better fit, but for open-ended individual synthesis, this is hard to beat. The conversation that happens while students are building the map, debating what connects to what and why, is often as valuable as the finished product (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.; Rudenga, 2024; Weimer, 2016b).
Write the names of 15 or so primary topics from the course in a circle on the board. Ask students to draw a line between any two topics and explain their connection. Students start in pairs, then take turns sharing their connections with the whole class. You can annotate as they go, adding themes, distinctions, and conclusions that emerge from the discussion (Rudenga, 2024).
Ask students to bring magazines or other print materials they no longer need, along with scissors and glue. Working in groups, they create a collage of images that captures key ideas from the course. Each group displays their collage and explains their choices to the class. The constraint of working only with images forces students to think differently than they would with words and often surfaces connections they wouldn’t have articulated otherwise (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.).
Have students work in groups to create a crossword puzzle using key concepts from the course, then exchange puzzles with another group and solve them. It’s a low-stakes, engaging way to review vocabulary and core ideas, and having students write the clues requires a level of precision about definitions that straightforward review often doesn’t (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.).
Ask students to come to class prepared to present (verbally or graphically) a metaphor for the subject of the course as a whole. What is [discipline] like? This works especially well in introductory courses where students are encountering a field for the first time and are still forming their sense of what it is and how it works (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.).
Put students in pairs or small groups and ask them to write a response to the question: what is [name of your discipline]? Simple as it sounds, it’s a surprisingly difficult question, and the answers tend to reveal how much students have internalized about the field, not just the content of your particular course (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.).
Ask students to imagine responding to a friend, family member, or future employer who wants to know what the course was about. They have 60 to 90 seconds. In larger classes, have students present in small groups rather than to the whole class. This works especially well when oral communication is already a goal of your course (Lee, 2019).
Mark the Moment: Celebration and Closure
There’s a difference between a course ending and a course having closure. These activities acknowledge what your class accomplished together and give students, and you, a proper send-off.
Take a few minutes to genuinely thank your students. Let them know what they did well, if they surprised you, and what you learned from them. It sounds simple, but students rarely hear this kind of specific, personal acknowledgment from an instructor (Lee, 2019; Uhl, 2005). If appropriate, select samples of student work and ask students to read them aloud to the group. You can also invite students to express their own gratitude to one another. Encourage them to be as specific as possible.
Have students write letters to the students who will take this course next semester. Ask them to think about what they wish they had known when they started, offer advice on how to succeed, and share what surprised them. You can read these letters aloud the next time you teach the course, or seal them and deliver them randomly to incoming students (Davis, 2009; Lee, 2019; Murray, 2008).
A sample prompt from Croxall (2013): “Write a short letter to future students in the class, letting them know whatever you think is most important about the instructor, the course, the assignments, and the reading.”
A variation: have students write a letter post-dated three months out, talking about one thing they learned and how it’s been useful to them.
Have each student tape a blank piece of paper to their back. Students circulate around the room, writing positive comments on each other’s papers. When everyone has had a turn, students remove their papers and read what their classmates wrote. It’s warm, a little silly, and students tend to love it (Lee, 2019).
The class forms a circle. You start by sharing something you experienced teaching the course, then toss a ball of yarn to a student across the circle while holding onto your end. That student shares something they experienced, then tosses the yarn to someone else. Everyone holds onto their piece until the end. By the time everyone has shared, the yarn forms a web connecting the whole class. It’s a simple visual reminder of what the group built together (Silberman, 2006).
If students worked in the same groups throughout the semester, have them write a short letter to each group member reflecting on what that person contributed and how they experienced working with them. A variation: have students write a letter of reference for each group member to take to future group projects (Maier & Panitz, 1996).
Have students nominate one another for awards based on their contributions to the class (e.g., most creative question, most improved, most likely to upend the field, whatever fits your course culture). You can design your own awards or keep it informal (Burgess-Van Aken, 2017; Murray, 2008).
Ask everyone to share the most significant experience they had in the course. You go first. In larger classes, have students share in small groups rather than with the whole class (Silberman, 2006).
Take a photo together at the end of class. Don’t forget to send it to your students afterward (Murray, 2008).
If you have a smaller class, consider bringing in food and playing music on the last day. You might even ask students to submit songs that connect to the course content in some way and build a last-day playlist together (Lee, 2019; Murray, 2008). Check your department’s policies on food in the classroom before you plan this one.
Give students something small to remember the course: a card, a bookmark, a printed quote, whatever feels right for your subject. It doesn’t need to be elaborate (Center for Teaching Excellence, n.d.).
If you’ve taken photos of students working throughout the semester, compile them into a short digital album to share on the last day. It’s a quick way to highlight what the class accomplished together and remind students how far they’ve come (Burgess-Van Aken, 2017).
Consider adding a social component outside the classroom: coffee, dinner, or a casual drop-in. This works best in smaller courses where a genuine community has formed over the semester.
Exam Review and Final Prep
If your last class falls before a final exam or major project, the default tends to be a passive run-through of the material. These approaches keep review active and student-centered, and some double as meaningful reflection activities as well.
Ask students to come to the last class with their own version of the final exam: questions they think are fair, important, and representative of the course. Have them exchange with a partner and try to answer each other’s questions. You can also collect the best ones and use them on the actual exam (Murray, 2008).
A variation: the Snowball. Have students write their questions on a piece of paper, crumple it up, and throw it across the room. Students pick up whatever lands near them, try to answer the question, and share with the class. It sounds chaotic, and it is a little, but students tend to be more engaged than they would be in a standard review (plus, it’s fun!) (Murray, 2008).
Use a game format to review for the final. Jeopardy, Family Feud, or a Kahoot quiz all work well. You can find Jeopardy templates online, and polling platforms like Kahoot and Poll Everywhere have built-in game formats. Consider offering small prizes to the winning team (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.; Murray, 2008)
Divide students into small groups, assigning each group a specific topic or unit to review. After they’ve had time to discuss and prepare, regroup students so that each new group contains one person from each of the original groups. Students take turns teaching their topic to their new group. It’s a time-efficient way to cover a lot of ground and having to explain something to someone else is one of the more reliable ways to figure out whether you actually understand it. This resource provides guidance on how to implement the Jigsaw strategy.
Create review activities based on familiar game formats (crossword puzzles, playing cards, anagrams, Scrabble, or Pictionary). These work well for courses with a lot of vocabulary or key concepts to review (Silberman, 2006).
Set aside time to talk with students about how to actually prepare for the exam. Not just what to study, but how. Help them think through a realistic study plan for the time they have left. This is especially useful for first-year students who may not yet have a sense of what effective exam preparation looks like (Weimer, 2016a).
Walk students back through the syllabus together. What did you cover? Did the course deliver on its stated goals and objectives? You can also have students rate their own progress on the course goals using a live, anonymous poll. It tends to generate honest, useful conversation (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.; Maier & Panitz, 1996; Rudenga, 2024).
This one is a little different from the other activities here. It’s about the structure of the exam itself rather than what happens in the last class session. Consider structuring the final exam in two stages: students first complete the exam individually, then retake it in small groups. The individual portion typically counts for the larger share of the grade. Instructors who use this approach often report seeing genuine breakthroughs during the group phase. Students talk through their reasoning out loud in ways they rarely do otherwise.
Gathering Feedback for Next Time
End-of-semester course evaluations have their place, but they don’t always give you the kind of specific, actionable feedback that actually helps you redesign a course. These strategies go a step further, asking students to reflect on their own learning in ways that are useful for you too.
Rather than asking students whether they liked the course, ask them about their learning. Have students anonymously complete three or more of the following prompts and let them know you’ll be using their responses when planning the course next time (Shadiow & Weimer, 2015).
- It most helped my learning of the content when… because…
- It would have helped my learning of the content if… because…
- The assignment that contributed the most to my learning was… because…
- The reading that contributed the most to my learning was… because…
- The approach I took to my own learning that contributed the most for me was… because…
- The biggest obstacle for me in learning the material was… because…
- A resource I know about that you might consider using is… because…
- I was most willing to take risks with learning new material when… because…
- During the first day, I remember thinking… because…
- What I think I will remember five years from now is… because…
Ask students to share their thoughts informally. Which readings or course materials were most memorable? When did they feel most engaged? When did they feel most disconnected? What in-class activities best helped them master the material? What additional topics would they have liked to cover? This works well as a whole-class conversation, but you can also have students write their responses first and share anonymously (Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), n.d.).
List every assignment from the course and ask students to tell you what you should stop, start, or continue doing. Be sure to emphasize that students should respond based on how well each assignment helped them learn, not whether they liked it or not (Weimer, 2016b). It’s a simple framework, but the distinction between “I didn’t enjoy this” and “this didn’t help me learn” tends to generate more useful responses than open-ended feedback.
Styles (2022) offers a more extensive format designed to solicit detailed feedback from students on the course. It requires more class time than the other strategies here, but instructors who have used it report that the depth of feedback makes it worth the investment. You can access the full description and prompts here.
Before you close out the semester, take a few minutes to share with students what you learned. Think about the subject, about teaching, and about this particular group of students. Also reflect on mistakes you made, things that surprised you, and what you might do differently next time (Center for Teaching and Learning, n.d.; Lee, 2019; Maier & Panitz, 1996; Uhl, 2005). It models the kind of reflective practice you’ve been asking of them all semester and students tend to appreciate the honesty more than you might expect (Weimer, 2016b).
Final Thoughts
A meaningful last day doesn’t require a lot of extra work. It requires intentionally deciding early on that the ending of your course matters as much as the beginning.
Start small. Pick one activity that fits your course and your students. See how it goes. Most instructors who try this find that they leave the semester feeling so much better about their course, and students often realize just how much they learned along the way, too!
Additional Resources
References
- Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS). (n.d.). Ending the Semester. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://cndls.georgetown.edu/ending-the-semester/
- Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Better endings: What to do in the last day of class. https://commons.trincoll.edu/ctl/files/2013/08/WEEK-14-Better-Endings-What-to-Do-the-Last-Day-of-Class.pdf
- Center for Teaching Excellence. (n.d.). Fizzle or Finale: The Final Day of Class. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://www.duq.edu/about/centers-and-institutes/center-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-and-learning-at-duquesne/fizzle-or-finale-on-the-final-day-of-class
- Croxall, B. (2013, April 23). Improve your Course Evaluations by having your Class Write Letters to Future Students. ProfHacker. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/improve-your-course-evaluations-by-having-your-class-write-letters-to-future-students
- Davis, B. G. (2009). Tools for teaching (2nd ed). Jossey-Bass.
- Himelein, M. (2021, August 30). Activities for the Last Day of Class. Teach Anywhere. https://teachanywhere.byu.edu/activities-for-the-last-day-of-class
- Lang, J. (2006, November 27). Finishing Strong: How to be Inspiring on the Last Day of Class. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/finishing-strong-how-to-be-inspiring-on-the-last-day-of-class/
- Lee, C. (2019, April 30). 7 Ideas for the Last Day of Class. Turnitin. https://www.turnitin.com/blog/7-ideas-for-the-last-day-of-class
- Maier, M. H., & Panitz, T. (1996). End on a High Note: Better Endings for Classes and Courses. College Teaching, 44(4), 145–148.
- Murray, S. (2008). End with a bang, not a wimper: Twelve ways to engage students on the last day of classes. Association of Atlantic Universities’ Teaching Showcase, 51–58. https://www.atlanticuniversities.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2008Proceedings_Final.pdf#page=63
- Rudenga, K. (2024, April 22). 7 Ideas to Perk Up Your Last Day of Class. The Chronicle of Higher Education Advice. https://www.chronicle.com/article/7-ideas-to-perk-up-your-last-day-of-class
- Shadiow, L., & Weimer, M. (2015, November 23). A New Twist on End-of-Semester Evaluations. Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/philosophy-of-teaching/a-new-twist-on-end-of-semester-evaluations/
- Silberman, M. L. (2006). Teaching actively: Eight steps and 32 strategies to spark learning in any classroom. Pearson/A&B.
- Styles, E. (2022). Last Class Workshop. https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/124006
- Uhl, C. (2005). The Last Class. College Teaching, 53(4), 165–166. https://doi.org/10.3200/CTCH.53.4.165-166
- Weimer, M. (2016a, January 27). Five Ways to Improve Exam Review Sessions. Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/educational-assessment/five-ways-to-improve-exam-review-sessions/
- Weimer, M. (2016b, April 13). The Last Class Session: How to Make It Count. Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning. https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/the-last-class-session-how-to-make-it-count/