Welcome to the Tuesday Teaching Tip, an easy-to-implement tool that you can use immediately in your classroom teaching.  

TUESDAY TEACHING TIP: Cultivating Closure through Reflective Practice

The end of the academic year is often a whirlwind of high-stakes assessments and grading marathons. However, research on growth mindsets suggests that learning is an iterative process that benefits deeply from structured reflection. Providing students with the space to analyze their journey—from their initial struggles to their final mastery—helps them internalize their progress and carry these insights into future coursework and careers.

This week, we challenge you to: Dedicate 10-15 minutes of your final class session to a structured reflection activity that helps students synthesize their learning and celebrate their growth.

Here’s one way to do it: The "Three-Step Mirror" Reflection

• Look Back (The Struggle): Ask students to identify one concept or skill they found particularly challenging at the start of the term. Normalizing this struggle reinforces that difficulty is a sign of learning in progress.
• Look In (The Strategy): Have them describe the specific effort, practice, or resource (like office hours or peer study) they used to overcome that challenge.
• Look Forward (The Growth): Ask students to reflect on how they will apply this newfound knowledge or learning strategy in their next chapter, whether that's a summer internship, a future course, or their professional career.

Here are a few additional ideas which you can also quickly implement:

The "Letter to a Future Student": Ask students to write a brief, anonymous letter to someone taking the course next year. In the letter, they should describe one major challenge they faced and the specific learning strategy that helped them succeed. This helps students internalize their growth while providing you with "social proof" to share with future cohorts.

The "Knowledge Map" Evolution: If you used a concept map or syllabus review at the start of the term, bring it back. Have students highlight the areas where they felt like "novices" in Week 1 and annotate those same areas with the "expert" insights they have now.

The "Muddiest Point" Resolution: Ask students to revisit their "muddiest point" from earlier in the semester. Have them explain—in their own words—how that concept eventually became clear. If it's still a bit "muddy," have them identify one specific resource (like a Digital Resource for Teaching) they can use to clarify it over the break.

The "Stop-Start-Continue" for Self-Regulation: Instead of evaluating the course, have students evaluate their own performance.

• Stop: What study habit did not serve me well this term?
• Start: What is one new academic habit I want to bring into next year?
• Continue: What strategy did I master that I am proud of?

The "Gratitude & Growth" Circle: In smaller classes, have students share one thing they learned from a peer during the term. This reinforces the idea that the classroom is a collaborative learning community and that growth often happens through social interaction.

 

DID YOU DO IT?

Let us know how it went. We would love to hear your feedback about how you implemented today’s Tuesday Teaching Tip in your classroom. Click here to fill out our 3-question survey. The survey is anonymous, but if you choose to enter your name, you’ll be entered in a drawing at the end of the quarter to win a new book from Faculty Development!

 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Shut Up & Grade on Friday, June 5 RSVP
  
  
• June All-Day Accessibility Working Sessions on Wednesday, June 17 RSVP and Tuesday, June 23 RSVP

 

WANT TO READ A LITTLE MORE?

• Check out our Digital Resources for Teaching (DRT) page for more ideas on Building Classroom Community and concluding your course effectively.
• Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
• Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2020). What can be learned from growth mindset controversies? American Psychologist.
• O’Keefe, P. A., et al. (2021). Developing a growth-mindset pedagogy for higher education and testing its efficacy.
• Stanford University. Growth mindset and enhanced learning.

This week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip was prepared by Thiadora Pina on behalf of Faculty Development and the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning.

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