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Don’t Just Fade to Black: Ending a Course With Purpose
- The Scholarly Teacher
- Apr 4
- 8 min read
Todd Zakrajsek, Director, ITLC-Lilly Conferences on Evidence-Based Teaching and Learning & Adjunct Associate Professor, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Early in my teaching career, I remember agonizing over what to do on the first day of class. I wanted to start on a positive note, get students excited about the topic, show them engagement was central to the course, and set the tone for what I hoped we would accomplish. Whether as a graduate student or new faculty member, I repeatedly heard that classic advice: You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. So, like many educators, I invested heavily in making the first day impactful as I wanted the course to be a good experience for my students.
Interestingly, it took me years before I gave any real thought to the last day of class. Most of my instructors had used that last day to review for the final exam and provide a few logistical reminders about time and place, so that’s what I did. A few days later, students would take their finals and quietly move on. Some would pause to thank me or mention something meaningful, but overall, the course just... ended. It felt like a movie that faded to black.
Then one day, at the end of the final exam for my introductory psychology course, a student who had sat in the back of the room all semester looking indifferent stopped by my desk after dropping his completed exam on the pile on my desk. I was grading exams for another course when he said, “I’m not sure if you care, but this class was amazing.” I was caught off guard. But after a moment of reflection, I understood. We had built a strong classroom community over the semester, and yet I had ended the course with a quick, “It was a great semester,” followed by a reminder of the time and place of the final. On exam day, I handed out the test, told students they had two hours, and wrote on the chalkboard (yes, we still had chalkboards then), “Have a great summer.” Future courses would have a rewritten ending.
The Importance of the End
There are compelling reasons to be intentional about the final class. For one, it’s a prime opportunity to consolidate learning. Students often don’t realize how much they’ve learned until we show them. I used to share a long list of course concepts and pause to ask, “Who remembers this one?” Students were consistently surprised—and impressed—by how much they knew. And it's not just content. In a well-structured course, students often grow in soft skills like communication, collaboration, critical thinking, adaptability, and emotional intelligence—skills that employers value highly.
Without an intentional close, students may walk away unaware of how much they’ve developed. As an advisor, I’d sometimes ask students what they learned in a course like social psychology. I often heard, “A lot of stuff. It was pretty good.” That likely wasn’t the instructor’s intended learning outcome: a lot of pretty good stuff. A well-designed final session can help students articulate their growth—and see how the course fits into a broader academic and professional journey.
It’s also worth noting the relational impact. By semester’s end, your class has become a community. Some students may have found friendships, or simply discovered that your classroom was a place they felt safe, seen, or heard—especially students who take time to open up. For them, the end of the course can feel abrupt or even emotionally jarring. A final day that includes a moment of gratitude, reflection, or shared acknowledgement can go a long way.
That’s a Wrap: Seven Strategies
Just like the first day, the final class can be thoughtfully designed. I suggest using backward design: Start by asking yourself, What do I want students to walk away with from our last conversation? Or, how do I help students to transition from this course to their next semester?
Once you’ve identified your goal, pick a strategy to match. Following are seven research-informed options, each backed by the science of learning. Of course, as with any teaching and learning strategy, once you find what you feel will work for you, adapt it to your specific course, keeping in mind that how you end the first day of an introductory course may be very different from what you chose for a capstone course. (See the Note following the references.)
1. Retrieval + Reflection: What Did We Learn?
Ask students to write down the three most important things they learned in your course—from memory. Then have them compare and discuss answers in small groups or pairs.
Science of Learning: This taps into the retrieval effect, which shows that actively recalling information strengthens memory and understanding more than passive review (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011).
2. Return to the Learning Objectives
Bring back the learning goals from the first day of class. Ask students to reflect on where those goals showed up, how they were addressed, and how confident they now feel with each one. You could have them work in small groups to create concept maps, given them the opportunity to see how material is interconnected.
Science of Learning: This promotes metacognitive awareness, helping students realize not just what they learned, but how they learned it, and how the major themes connect (O’Day & Karpicke, 2021).
3. Letter to a Future Student
Ask students to write a short note (or video message) to a future student taking the course: “Here’s what I wish I’d known...” or “This helped me succeed...” You can even share the best ones—with permission—next semester.
Science of Learning: Teaching someone else is a powerful form of elaboration, and this strategy also encourages students to reflect on their growth (Zakrajsek, 2022, 2025).
4. Celebrate Growth, Not Just Completion
Invite students to identify one thing they couldn’t do at the beginning of the course that they can do now and where, specifically, they struggled a bit to “get” it. It could be a skill, a mindset, or simply an area of increased confidence.
Science of Learning: Highlighting growth reinforces self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986) and encourages a growth mindset (Yeager & Dweck, 2020)—key factors in student persistence and resilience.
5. Course Remix: One-Sentence Synthesis
Challenge students to finish one of the following prompts:
“This course was really about...”
“I used to think ___, now I think ___.”
Science of Learning: This promotes schema construction—a powerful part of learning where students are pushed to make meaning, identify themes, and synthesize what might otherwise feel like disconnected content (Zakrajsek, 2022, 2025).
6. Mini Focus Groups or Class Conversations
Use the final session for students to talk—in groups or as a whole class—about what they’re taking away. Ask: What surprised you? What challenged you? What do you wish we had spent more time on?
Science of Learning: Increases student voice and fosters a sense of community and closure.
7. Revisit the Big Questions
Did you start the course with a provocative question or enduring theme? Bring it back. Ask students how their answers or understanding have evolved.
Science of Learning: This strategy brings intellectual closure, helping students see the arc of the course—and how they’ve changed along the way. This impacts self-efficacy and belongingness (Bandura, 1997).
And If We Don’t…
There are lost opportunities and potential negative consequences when ending the course without purposeful design, if we just review exam content, time, place, and walk out. Following are just a few possible unfortunate outcomes.
Missed opportunity to point out to the student how much they have grown and learned.
Reinforces one of the worse assumptions of college, that it is all about doing the work and getting grades.
Reduces reflection and perhaps not internalizing what they have learned.
Missed opportunity to strengthen instructor-student relationships. An abrupt ending to a course conveys that the students do not mean much to the instructor.
Misses the opportunity to talk to students about how the course fits into the curriculum and perhaps their own personal and professional path.
Leaves some students emotionally adrift, particularly those who find comfort in academic structure and the community of your course.
Avoiding these consequences does not require a full class period or an elaborate activity. Even a relatively quick 10-minute purposeful activity of reflection, gratitude, or acknowledgement can make a huge difference in how the students feel about the course and even what they later remember.
Bringing It Home
It’s easy to treat the last day of class as an afterthought—especially if you are focused on final grades, planning your summer, or fail to see the community your students have developed. But the final day presents an opportunity to be a powerful teaching moment. It might even be worth having a celebration (Rudenga, 2024).
The end of a course is a chance to help students reflect, recognize their own transformation, and place the class in a broader context. If you already have a final-day routine, consider adding even a single new element. If you don’t, give one of the strategies above a try or search for one that will meet your desired outcome.
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.
References
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W.H. Freeman.
Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772–775. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199327
O'Day, G. M., & Karpicke, J. D. (2021). Comparing and combining retrieval practice and concept mapping. Journal of Educational Psychology, 113(6), 986–997. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000616
Rudenga, K. (2024, April 22). 7 ideas to perk up your last day of class. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/7-ideas-to-perk-up-your-last-day-of-class
Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2020). What can be learned from growth mindset controversies? American Psychologist, 75(9), 1269–1284. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000794
Zakrajsek, T. D. (2022). The new science of learning: How to learn in harmony with your brain (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Zakrajsek, T. D. (2025). Essentials of the new science of learning: The power of learning in harmony with your brain. Routledge.
Note: I did not cite a specific person for any of the activities in this list. Every end-of-course activity I have ever seen has been adapted and expanded on multiple times. Many activities also spontaneously developed in one location that have been in place for many years. For example, a faculty member once eagerly explained to me a clever thing they had developed for the last day of class. I have no doubt it was developed independently by that person. The delicate part was explaining that I had used the same activity 20 years prior as part of a closing plenary address at a large conference. It is also possible someone else had used it in their course years prior to my use. The point is that I apologize if any of these were developed by you or someone you know and they are not properly attributed. This article is digital; if you feel something has been misattributed, please let me know and I will add the attribution right away.
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