"Beginners Are Many But Enders Are Few": How to End a Course Well and Why It Matters

The last day of a course is often viewed as awkward, abrupt, and even antithetical to a course's aims. More often than not, prime opportunities for reflection, reinforcement, reconciliation, and closure are typically subsumed to administrative tasks and end-of-course exhaustion. This paper summ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Schole : a journal of leisure studies and recreation education 2022-09, Vol.37 (3), p.194-200
Main Authors: Stone, Garrett A., Powell, Gwynn M., McGuire, Francis A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Class Activities
Critical Thinking
End-of-course pedagogy
Knowledge Level
Learning Activities
Leisure Education
peak-end rule
Program Effectiveness
Reflection
Relevance (Education)
remembering self-experiencing self
Review (Reexamination)
Skill Development
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:The last day of a course is often viewed as awkward, abrupt, and even antithetical to a course's aims. More often than not, prime opportunities for reflection, reinforcement, reconciliation, and closure are typically subsumed to administrative tasks and end-of-course exhaustion. This paper summarizes the scant end-of-course literature, reviews the theoretical importance of ending a course well, and highlights a few "tried and true" end-of-course activities. Ending a course well may help students connect the dots, transfer learning, and experience academic and emotional closure, while simultaneously helping faculty refine their teaching and regroup in preparation for future iterations of the course. As leisure and learning experience design experts, leisure scholars are in a prime position to lead out in meaningful end-of-course pedagogy.
ISSN:1937-156X
2162-4097
DOI:10.1080/1937156X.2020.1760745