Here’s how to design an effective final review session that could help your research too.

Happy Wednesday, work friends.

We’ve made it to the final stretch of a semester that has felt, for many of us, a dizzy nightmare of chaos and uncertainty.

Threats to DEI programs, legislative attacks on academic freedom, and the increasing precarity of higher education have left many of us disoriented—asking hard questions about what our work means and whether it still matters.

You’ve been carrying all these things and still showing up for students—reviewing, replying to emails, holding space.

If no one has said it recently, THANK YOU.

Gratitude for your efforts aside, the semester is not over yet. Some of us have a final exam in our course, so we still need to create our assessments and do our best to help our students prepare as they navigate end-of-semester exam anxiety.

This week, I want to revisit a previously shared strategy for designing an effective final review session. It didn’t gain much traction the first time (I mistimed the release), but I think it might land differently now.

In my original post, I described a final exam review session that I designed to clarify my expectations with students during our last class meeting.

I explained that my goal in designing the session was to avoid the all-too-common flurry of “What do I need to know for the exam?” emails from my students at the end of the semester.

Spoiler alert: my strategy was a success.

Aside from encouraging everyone to re-read my original post as they wrap up the semester, I also wanted to share an idea about how we, as instructors, can leverage what we might otherwise view as a draining experience.

What if our review session wasn’t just something we created to support students’ learning but also a tool for fueling insights about our own research?

Let me explain.

In my previous post, I explained that I view three main objectives when designing my final review sessions: identifying gaps in students’ understanding, supporting students in the information retrieval process, and incorporating fun and laughter to help students solidify their updated understanding.

Today, I want to provide a small addition to this exercise that could help propel your research.

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

One thing I’ve noticed as an instructor is that teaching often sparks my own scholarly curiosity in at least two ways.

First, when explaining concepts to students, I’ve learned that my role as an instructor often helps me understand where concepts are non-obvious and where I may be making an unwarranted assumption.

Second, when creating discussion questions to enhance students’ engagement with the material, I’ve observed that I often discover new connections that arise from my students’ different backgrounds, interests, and previous learning experiences.

Initially, I noticed these moments and felt energized, but then I quickly moved on.

In this context, I treated my teaching and research roles as existing in separate silos that were not mutually beneficial. I viewed review week and designing my final review session as the closing chapter. A final act of service before grading, and then—finally—returning to my “real” work: writing.

This was a mistake.

Here’s what I’ve learned: there is immense value in capturing these moments and treating them as an asset in my research and writing process.

In qualitative research terms, I started treating these moments like field notes—clues about what matters, where confusion lingers, and what deserves deeper inquiry.

Whenever a student’s question caught me off guard or a pattern emerged in the confusion, I made a note. Things like:

• Why is this still confusing—even after week 12?

• What’s the conceptual leap students are struggling to make?

• Why did they light up when I explained it this way instead of that way?

Those notes? They’re not just curiosities. They’re early drafts of research questions.

During a time when many of us are operating on fumes, I want to urge you to consider how you can treat this end-of-the-semester requirement as a source of energy and a way to fuel your research.

If this shift feels like a relief, I want you to know I’m developing a new course designed to help instructors turn their classrooms into creative labs—places where scholarship is sparked, not stalled.

I’ll share more soon, but I wanted to offer this small strategy to help other instructors regain some writing momentum before the semester ends and the transition to summer research and writing begins.

Until next time,

Brielle aka Your Cooperative Colleague