Transparency in Designing Class Assignments

Transparency in Designing Class Assignments

Workshop Description:

Participate in this Assignment Design workshop using the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) in Higher Education principle. TILT is an Inclusive Excellence pedagogical practice that helps students understand how and why they are learning course content in particular ways. Transparent teaching methods have been shown to lead to improvements in student learning, academic success, sense of belonging, as well as gains in retention in large, controlled studies of students at institutions like CSULB. In the session, participants will learn about TILT, Transparent assignment design, and collaborate on revising one existing assignment in order to conform to Transparent teaching practices. Workshop will:

• Demonstrate how the specific knowledge and skills involved in assignments will be important in students’ lives beyond the context of the assignments, the course, and the institutions.
• Provide hands-on activities to facilitate revising and redesigning class assignments using the “Transparent Assignment Template”
• Provide information on how faculty could connect assignments with institutional learning outcomes and define learning objectives in language and terms that help students recognize how assignments will benefit their learning

Participants will bring in existing assignments aligned with particular student learning outcomes. Hands-on activities will include practice in the following Transparency methods:

• Promote students' conscious understanding of how they learn
• Chart out the skills students will practice in each assignment
• Begin each assignment by defining the learning benefits to students (skills practiced, content knowledge gained, the tasks to be completed, the criteria for success)
• Revise or redesign assignments using the Transparent Assignment Template, which has proven to be beneficial to students