Organization, Transparency, and Teaching Students How to Learn

What's in this week's materials?

Content:

Ideas about organizing class content and activities to allow students to put more effort into learning and less effort into navigating
Ideas for making assignments and activities "transparent," which is helpful for all students and especially helpful for first-gen students
Ideas for helping students identify and use effective learning strategies, again helpful for all students and especially helpful for first-gen students

Activities:

Begin to set up your Canvas course to facilitate ease of navigation
Create or draft a transparent assignment
Reflect on ways to incorporate metacognition and effective learning strategies into class meetings, and how to resist the pressure of "content coverage"

Why is this important?

Organization and clarity is critical for student learning because it reduces cognitive load and helps them focus on new material and skills. Organization is also fairly easy to achieve, and has bonus benefits of positively influencing students' perception of our expertise, and making our course administration easier (fewer emails!).

Transparency helps students to understand how and why they are learning course content in a particular way and how their learning applies to real world issues. Transparency supports academic confidence, a sense of belonging, and transfer of skills between domains. The gains are even greater for first gen students.

Gaining and using effective strategies for learning helps students to learn more and better (obviously) with less effort. This is especially important given the demands on first gen students' time and energy. But effective learning strategies often feel harder, so students mistakenly conclude they're not learning and abandon the effective strategies for comfortable but less effective old ones unless they are supported.

Feldman, K.A. 2007. Identifying exemplary teachers and teaching: Evidence from student ratings. In The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education: An evidence-based perspective (pp. 93-143). Springer, Dordrecht.

Nilson, L.B., 2013. Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to strengthen students’ self-awareness and learning skills. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Winkelmes, M., A. Boye, and S. Tapp. 2019. Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.