Learning & Teaching Collaborative Resources

Transparent assignment design is a simple teaching intervention that significantly benefits student learning and contributes to equity and retention.

Specifically, transparent assignments clarify the purpose of an assignment along with the tasks and criteria to complete it so that students understand them before they start an assignment. This simple teaching strategy can be implemented in any course and does not require you to change your teaching style or the overall design of your course.

A recent AAC&U study (Winkelmes et al., 2016) showed that students who understand the purposes, tasks, and criteria of an assignment before they begin to work on it feel more confident, experience an increased sense of belonging in college, and believe they can master important skills. This leads to higher grades and retention rates in the long term. However, many students do not arrive at college with the ability to decipher what their professors expect of them, even though they are capable of doing the work. Transparent assignment design addresses this issue.

Transparent teaching benefits all students, but benefits are even greater for first-generation college students and students from underrepresented groups, so faculty who do this will also contribute to equity and inclusion at Keene State College. 

This research has been led by the Transparency in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (TiLT Higher Ed.) project based at UNLV. This page is a collection of resources from the TiLT Higher Ed. project and other sources for faculty interested in learning more about transparency and revising their own assignments to be more transparent.

In this 7-minute video, Dr. Mary-Ann Winkelmes, Director of Instructional Development and Research at UNLV and the primary investigator on the AAC&U study, gives an overview of the transparency framework and the research.

For an even shorter overview of the transparency framework, you can check out this series of four videos (each less than a minute): 1, 2, 3, 4.

A recent AAC&U study (Winkelmes et al., 2016) conducted at seven Minority Serving Institutions examined the effect of greater transparency on students' learning experiences. Faculty teaching two sections of the same course in the same term revised two assignments for one section to make them more transparent (and made no changes to assignments for the other section). Compared to their peers in the control group (those enrolled in sections where no changes were made), students in the more transparent sections:

• Reported significantly increased academic confidence at the end of the course;
• Experienced significantly increase sense of belonging at the end of the course;
• Reported significant gains in core academic skills that are also valued by employers (including learning independently, writing effectively and applying knowledge to different contexts).

These gains were particularly strong for students who were first-generation college students, low income, and members of underrepresented minority groups. By contributing to better outcomes for students who are statistically less likely to graduate from college, transparent assignment design thus also contributes to creating a ore equitable learning environment.

A simultaneous study at UNLV found that first-year students who had been enrolled in the more transparent course sections had a retention rate approximately 15% higher than the average.

Reference:

Winkelmes, M.-A., Bernacki, M.,Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., & Weavil, K. H. (2016) A Teaching Intervention that Increases Underserved College Students’ Success. Peer Review 18, no. 1/2.

The TiLT Higher Ed. project has also produced a one-page summary of research findings.

Tools and resources to help you revise your own assignments to be more transparent:

• Transparent assignment template for faculty (TiLT Higher Ed./UNLV)
• Checklist for designing a transparent assignment (TiLT Higher Ed.)
• Measuring Transparency: A Learning-Focused Assignment Rubric (University of Virginia Center for Teaching Excellence)

In the following article, four faculty who participated in the study at UNLV describe their experience and outcomes of their assignment revision:

• Winkelmes, M.-A., Copeland, D. E., Jorgensen, E., Sloat, A., Smedley, A., Pizor, P., Johnson, K., Jalene, S. (2015). Benefits (some unexpected) of transparently designed assignments. National Teaching & Learning Forum 24, no. 4, 4-7.

The TiLT Higher Ed. project has a brief FAQ about transparent assignment design.

As you redesign your assignment, it may be helpful to consult some examples of assignments that have been redesigned to be more transparent (see the box to the right). It is also helpful to gather feedback on your assignment from one or more colleagues; see the box to the right for a suggested approach to doing this.

Keene State College faculty who have suggestions for additional resources, or who have additional questions about redesigning their assignments are encouraged to contact Chris Odato in Faculty Enrichment.

Request an Assignment Review

Chris Odato, Coordinator of Instructional Development, is available to review one or more of your assignments and make suggestions to improve clarity and transparency. Please use this form to request a review of your assignment. I will use criteria from the University of Virginia’s transparency rubric to guide and organize my feedback and will also address any specific questions or concerns that you identify. I will gladly work with you to implement any changes you wish to make based on my feedback, but the decision to make any changes will be up to you.

Work with a peer

In the process of revising your assignments to be more transparent to students, it can be useful to gather feedback from colleagues to help identify areas of the assignment that are unclear. A recommended approach is to partner with a colleague to review each other's assignments from the perspective of a novice student. Working with a partner from another discipline, or who is less familiar with the subject matter of your course, may make it easier to adopt a student’s perspective. 

The document below describes a suggested approach for working with a partner to provide feedback on the transparency of each other's assignments. This can be done in 30 minutes or less.

Keene State College faculty: For additional feedback or support in redesigning your assignment, contact Chris Odato for a one-on-one consultation.

The TiLT Higher Ed. project has sample assignments from a variety of disciplines that have been revised to be more transparent, including both the original (less transparent) and revised (more transparent) versions so that you can see the types of changes that were made. 

We would love to feature sample assignments from Keene State faculty in this section. Once you have revised your assignment, please consider sharing it (contact Chris Odato to share your files).