3 Reflection Questions to Help You End the Year Intentionally

The final month of any school year has an endless supply of distractions for a teacher: assemblies and ceremonies, field trips and field days, end-of-year conferences and next-year deliberations. Then, the bell rings in your last class period and suddenly the school year is over.

Collapsing into summer break is entirely understandable, but I would argue that it is a lot easier to do so as a teacher when you feel good about how you “landed the plane” in your classroom. Endings matter, and no matter the very understandable reasons for the final month being difficult to navigate, how we navigate to the finish line in our classrooms matters a great deal.

For me, that means keeping three questions front and center to hold myself accountable in the final stretch:

1. Did you share with students what they learned?
2. Did you ask students how it went?
3. Did you affirm students for who they are?

Question 1: Did You Share With Students What They Learned?

I’ve always thought of the school year as a story, and that an essential part of that story’s conclusion is a reflection on what students have learned over the school year.

There are challenges to this, admittedly. Many classrooms are built around a high-stakes standardized test with results that often aren’t released until after the school year ends. Add in all the end-of-year events going on in the final month alongside the pressure to make sure that students simply get everything done, and it is quite understandable that many students walk out of a course feeling like they did a lot—but not necessarily being able to name what they learned as a result. In my classroom, we address this challenge with learning stories.

After each assessment throughout the year, students reflect on their learning, first focusing on how they feel about how they did, and then, after incorporating feedback, focusing on what they can improve going forward. In my classroom, students complete these reflections digitally and hyperlink their assessments to capture a digital portfolio of their learning and their reflections.

At the end of the year, we spend an entire class period with these portfolios. Students review their own reflections and performance on assessments, sharing the patterns they notice and their big-picture takeaways with one another. During this activity, I also share my own reflection about their work, including the growth they’ve achieved collectively. It is important for you as the teacher, I think, to be able to identify and explain the learning that has taken place in your classroom at any point in the year—and especially at the conclusion of the year.

And the most important audience for sharing that learning? Your students.

Question 2: Did You Ask Students How It Went?

Yes, our own perspective as teachers matters—and so does our own evidence of student learning, as at the end of the day we are accountable for the learning that takes place within our walls. But too often, the missing ingredient in evaluating our classrooms is input from our own students, despite the fact that they are the ones who have the most authentic perspectives on what the experience in the classroom was like.

End-of-year surveys can be a useful part of this process, but they are limited and less authentic than an alternative I’ve come to lean on: teacher choice gallery walks.

To complete a teacher choice gallery walk, you must first reflect on your own practices from the year by answering this question: What are the most impactful choices I made in the classroom over the year? Next, you post those choices on paper around the classroom and invite students to walk around the room, looking at each of the impactful choices. As students read each choice, they have the opportunity to share what they would’ve done if they were the teacher and discuss the choices they think made a positive difference. Once students have reviewed all choices, we debrief as a whole class, and I inquire further into their perspectives.

This is the ultimate win-win: Students have a meaningful space to share their thoughts and opinions, and I get incredibly helpful data to make improvements in my teaching going forward.

Question 3: Did You Affirm Students For Who They Are?

One of the worst experiences I’ve had as a teacher came the summer after my first year teaching. I was reviewing end-of-year survey responses and saw that despite students feeling great about many aspects of our classroom, far fewer students than I expected left the classroom “believing Mr. Luther cared about them.”

Initially, I was in shock. Of course I cared about them! How did they not know that? Then, though, I was able to recognize that I had never actually told them explicitly how much they meant to me and how much I valued them, individually and collectively. I made the mistake of not prioritizing this in year one, and I haven’t made it since.

Now, I always close the school year with a personal project, one that includes an opportunity for students to share their experiences from the year and their goals for the future. I review these projects and provide feedback that explicitly calls out how much growth I’ve seen in the students and how proud I am of the work they’ve done, and affirms the individual stories they’ve shared.

More Than Anything, End Intentionally

Arriving at summer break is an achievement in any given school year, and we all know the amount of work it takes to arrive there. However, I also think it’s important to consider the journey up to this point: all the time spent building classroom communities, all the work establishing foundations for student learning, and all the productive struggles to grow and even thrive academically.

The school year deserves a meaningful, intentional ending. There is no single way to do this, but starting with these three reflection questions can help you find what works best for you and your classroom.