In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, David Gooblar (Mount Mercy University and Augustana College) bemoans the fact that he always has to spend a lot of time getting his first-year writing students to craft strong conclusions. “Students either neglect to write one entirely or repeat (sometimes word-for-word) what they’ve written in their introductions,” he says. “I try to get them to see an essay’s final paragraph as an opportunity to sum up, to draw conclusions, and to point forward to further questions beyond the scope of the current piece.”
Then Gooblar realized that for all the attention he paid to students’ essay conclusions, he gave very little thought to how he concluded his own classes. The flow of a class, he says, should mirror that of an essay: an introduction, the main body of content, and a conclusion that pulls everything together, highlights the most important ideas, and foreshadows the next class.
Pursuing this train of thought, he found other closing strategies in Robert Hempel’s book, College Teaching, and Ken Bain’s What the Best College Teachers Do: for example, ending each class by having students respond in writing to one or two pointed questions – such as, What major conclusions have you drawn from today’s class/reading/discussion? What questions remain in your mind? A brief quiz is also helpful – it solidifies the day’s content in students’ minds (the so-called “retrieval effect”). In addition, students’ responses give the instructor feedback on how well students are learning and can be used at the beginning of the next class to quickly review, spark discussion, clarify misconceptions, tie up loose ends, and segue into the day’s content. This strategy has the additional advantage of showing students that their responses are taken seriously.
“So then, to sum up,” says Gooblar: “Make the effort to consciously conclude your classes. Allow those conclusions to show how your teaching connects from one class period to the next. Make students an integral part of the course’s progress, and ensure that they will draw the conclusions you hope they’ll draw.”
“A Few Words by Way of Conclusion” by David Gooblar in The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2, 2014 (Vol. LX, #33, p. A34),
Stephen Anderson
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