1.4 Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT)
What is transparency?
Think back to your own experience of being a student on your first day of college. Try to name the feelings you experienced. Along with pride and excitement and fear, you may have also experienced confusion or disorientation as you located the classroom or accessed the course site. Perhaps you felt overwhelmed as you read your first college syllabus and tried to make sense of what was going to happen next.
The concept of transparency is extremely important to inclusive course design because it offers what many people need at the beginning of a new path: clear directions, shared expectations, and time to integrate ourselves into a new community of learners.
Rather than assume that students will “figure it out on their own,” transparent design allows educators to communicate the scope and structure of learning objectives, required coursework, and how it will be evaluated. As a framework, transparent design recognizes that unfamiliarity with the hidden social curriculums and norms of higher education can exclude certain student groups. Transparent design helps to ensure that students with first-generation status, low socioeconomic status, experiences of disability, and/or opportunity gaps in their education can orient themselves and feel invited to collaborate with the learning community. Researcher Mary Anne Winkelmes outlines the significant learning benefits of the Transparency Framework in the “Unwritten Rules of College” (Video, 39 seconds).
Stripping out the “hidden curriculum” of college is an equity-minded design choice. See also: Video Transcript for Mary Ann Winkelmes Unwritten Rules for College Success [permission pending].
Two Interventions for Transparent Learning Design
In addition to following the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) Project, course pilot instructors can create course maps and course sites that strengthen course alignment.
For example, to help students find their way as learners, courses use predictable structures and meaningful naming conventions in course documents and the course site. Predictable structures are important to students because:
- patterns of shared information build trust between student and instructor
- students can spend their time learning rather than hunting for definitions or struggling to understand expectations
Alignment between learning objectives, activities, and assessments is critical to equity-minded learning design.
Alignment ensures that student efforts and activities clearly relate to the ultimate goals of the course. When you design with alignment in mind, every learning element directly supports students in practicing and achieving the learning objectives necessary to meet desired outcomes.
In the Targeted Pathways project, course assignments are designed with the transparent design template from the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) Project. This framework defines the purpose, tasks, and criteria for success in all assignments.
Reflection Questions
- When have you encountered a “hidden curriculum” in your own learning experiences as a student or professional? How would transparent design made a difference for you in that moment?
- What might keep you from implementing the transparent design template (adding purpose, task, and criteria for success) in your assignments for your pilot term? What could help you remove these barriers, even just a little?
- What questions do you most often receive from students who are trying to navigate your course site? Where do they typically experience barriers to accessing content?
References
“Mary Ann Winkelmes Unwritten Rules for College Success.” Mary Ann Winklemes. YouTube. Mar 14, 2017. Accessed June 2 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40e1FPaJowg&t=4s
TILT Higher Ed Examples and Resources. Mary Ann Winklemes. Accessed June 2 2023. https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources
Licenses and Attributions
“Transparent and Aligned Learning Design” by Veronica Vold for Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed CC BY
