Supporting First Year Students: Transparent Teaching and the Why of Everything
Students now need clarity and explicit understanding of the what, why and how of everything they’re expected to do. They expect to have agency and explicit motivation for their actions. It’s best to start by having a conversation with students about the class as a community of learners and why showing up matters.
You may do many of these practices already. Being explicit about everything – even the stuff you think should be obvious, like why it’s important to meet a deadline – ensures everyone knows everything they need to know about your course including individual assignments, readings, activities, group work, attendance policies, deadlines. Students need to know:
- Why you’ve made the decisions you’ve made. Why these particular activities or material, i.e. why do you want them to read a certain chapter or to do group work?
- The purpose of each assignment and activity. What skill(s) or knowledge will students acquire and how?
- The objective. What do you expect students to produce or demonstrate? How will they do so? For assignments and projects, provide detailed instructions and estimates of how much time students should prepare to spend working.
- The deadlines. Why are they what they are and if they don’t meet a deadline, what are the consequences or what do they lose, e.g., if they submit by Deadline A, they will receive formative feedback that they’ll incorporate into their next submission on Deadline B. They can submit after Deadline A, but they won’t get robust feedback.
- How you’ll assess their work (and consider asking them to contribute to grading rubrics). What exactly needs to be demonstrated to show their learning and why? How will you know they’ve learned?
- Communicate clear and high expectations.
- Be clear about how much time you expect them to spend on assignments and how you’ll assess their work.
- Be mindful of any material they may find emotionally upsetting, consider alerting students and talk through your reasoning for including it.
- What might make it sensitive? What do you hope they’ll learn from this?
- Explain that having a critical conversation about challenging or sensitive material is quite different from endorsing it or promoting it.
- If you’re showing a clip with imagery generally regarded as racist, such as dancers in blackface, explain the historical context. How was the material received and used at the time? And really consider whether this particular clip is really necessary for students to learn what you want them to learn.
- Let students know they can excuse themselves if the material is too activating, or, if feasible, offer an alternative.
Learn more about teaching with transparency.