Reflecting on the Semester

In this section we briefly explore how preparing for future course revisions, archiving your course, and retaining sample student work can help you improve as a teacher.

Course Revision

It’s quite probable that you will teach the course you’ve just completed again, or that you’ll teach one in which you’ll use similar activities or assignments. Even if you don’t think you’ll teach this course in the next semester it is important to think about what you want to keep, what you want to revise, and what you want to toss when you do teach the course (or one like it) in the future.

Devoting a small pocket of time to revision at the end of the semester can help you get ahead for the next semester. Think about what can you do now that will save you time the next time you teach the course, and keep you from forgetting great ideas later.

• If your next course is already on CUNYFirst, add your textbooks.
• Write out a draft calendar for your syllabus for next semester.
• If you’ll use the same assignments, begin to update the date information.

• If you annotated your syllabus throughout the semester, then read through those notes and make a ‘to do’ list or a quick summary of them so that, when you return to planning, you have some guidelines for how to jump back in.
• If you didn’t annotate your syllabus, take a few minutes to jot down notes about what readings, assignments, and so forth you absolutely want to keep, or what new ideas you have that you want to try next time.
• Think about the feedback you received from students through both formal and informal evaluations. How can you incorporate this feedback into your next class?
• Review any slides or visual materials and decide which you’d like to reuse.

Archiving Your Course

If you used a course blog or another platform such as Blackboard, you might want to move some or all of your information to a new space. This will clear out the space for the new semester, but also ensure that you do not lose work from the previous semester. Note how long the information will be available on your previous platform, and make sure you migrate any resources, posts, or any other data you want to preserve before then.

If you used Blackboard you can ‘archive’ your course and move the material to a new semester. For more information, check out the tutorial at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/it/blackboard/repository/files/blackboard-9.1-documents/exportingyourblackboardcourse.pdf

If you used a WordPress blog for your course and want to do so again, you have a couple of options. You can export your old course site by using the export and import tools in WordPress. You will be able to choose what content from your old site to export (posts, pages, media, etc.) You can also just reuse your original course blog, adding new students to the existing site. However, if you have had your students adding content to that site and don’t want your new students to see the previous semester’s work, you’ll need to hide that old student work by reverting their posts to “draft” in the Dashboard. This has the disadvantage of making it harder for former students to access their work in your class, so you might encourage them to migrate their work to a personal storage space before the semester’s end.  

One of the advantages of using a course blog instead of Blackboard is the relative permanence of student work. Unlike Blackboard, where students lose access to their coursework as soon as the semester ends, a blog allows your students to access their work after the course is over.

Sample Student Work

You might want to retain some of your students’ work as examples to share with a class or as models that you can work through, critique, or peer review with future students. Make sure you get each student’s permission and preference for name/no name on the assignment. You might consider sending out an announcement or including on your syllabus that all work that is submitted can be used anonymously for “future educational purposes,” and asking that students who wish to be excluded from this policy email you. Additionally, if there are standout examples that illustrate students’ progress in your course or your approach to providing feedback you might want to keep them for your teaching portfolio.

For more information on what to do after the semester ends, check out our TLC Guide “New to Teaching: After the Semester” at https://tlc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/after-the-semester/.

Finally...

Teaching is hard work, and you’ll be exhausted at the end of the semester. Take some time after your class has ended to reflect on and take some joy from the impact you’ve had. Be proud, and look forward to the opportunities you’ll have to meet more incredible students and to improve as a teacher in subsequent semesters!!!