Instructors work hard to make sure we engage and impress students on the first day of class, but we often don’t put as much effort into the last day we spend with students. That’s unfortunate because the last day of class is an excellent opportunity to help students consolidate their learning and to acknowledge the community that you’ve built over the semester.

Todd Zakrajsek, director of the Lilly Conferences and associate professor at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, makes this argument in a recent article in The Scholarly Teacher blog. Zakrajsek sums up his case like this: “Personally, I’ve come to believe the final class session is even more than the first. If I botch the first day, I have time to recover. But the last day? That’s it. One final opportunity to help students look back—so they’re ready to move forward.”

Read the full text of Zakrajsek’s article, “Don’t Just Fade to Black: Ending a Course With Purpose.”