next »

[6and12]

Hi all,
 I'm a graduate student teaching undergrad composition. As I've only been at it for about two years, I'm wondering if others might be able to share some of their experiences regarding transparency in the classroom. I ask because I'm still learning a lot about different methods of teaching and conducting class. With all of this material still fresh in my mind, I wonder how much insight I should give my students as to what I'm doing and why. I try to be very clear about why I grade and comment on their work the way I do, and what I want them to gain from our class discussions and written assignments. I'm wondering if too much insight into my methods might get in the way, however.

I searched this board and only found this topic mentioned a few times. I also found a helpful column by James M. Lang, published here last year:
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/04/2007040201c/careers.html

Any additional thoughts on this topic would be appreciated. I've done some database searches for other material regarding transparency and teaching, but a lot of the results just have to do with using overhead projectors in the classroom.

[empyrean_aisles]

I'll be interested to hear what others say. I too think it can be enormously valuable to give students a little insight into the purpose of a particular assignment or set of questions. But I too worry about over-emphasizing this or spending too much class time on it such that I bore the students.

I've come round to thinking that the answer lies in being judicious & keeping your finger on the pulse of that particular class. If you assign a task and there is resistance, explaining (not necessarily in class; in a one-on-one meeting with a dissatisfied student who will pass it onto others) can work well. If you have a new exercise for them to do, or one involving a bit of (as the Brits would say) faffing around with new technology, a rationale can be useful in keeping them on your side rather than generating resentment about what they may otherwise assume to be a pointless task. Use your judgement (as I'm sure you are doing already).

Oh, one further thought: I had a good bunch this year who said in their evaluations they appreciated the fact that I showed interest in whether or not they were actually understanding the material. I think that came out of me occasionally explaining to them the pedagogical value of certain exercises or ways of running discussion. So, I guess that can be a good byproduct: giving them a little insight into the fact that you are thinking about how they can best learn makes them feel loved ... which as we all know is the most important thing at evaluation time :)

[dundee]

I always teach transparently, although I had not thought of it in those terms before. I believe it is crucial for students to know why I use the methods I use and why they are performing each exercise or assignment. They need to know that the assignments are valuable, why they are doing them, and what they are supposed to learn. I always receive positive feedback on this - not just from students, but also from observations by other faculty and during teaching demos at interviews. I can't imagine not teaching in this way. Part of it is due to my personality - I am one of those people who has to know how things work, what the plan is, the big picture, etc. I am not happy to simply do what I'm told without explanation, and don't expect my students to be either. In fact, I actively encourage them to question the education they are receiving.

[larryc]

I always explain why we are doing things this way and I often ask students how it is working for them. It takes a bit of confidence and experience to operate this way, and sometimes you have tow draw a line in the sand, but the students really appreciate it.

[oldadjunct]

I always teach transparently, although I had not thought of it in those terms before. I believe it is crucial for students to know why I use the methods I use and why they are performing each exercise or assignment. They need to know that the assignments are valuable, why they are doing them, and what they are supposed to learn. I always receive positive feedback on this - not just from students, but also from observations by other faculty and during teaching demos at interviews. I can't imagine not teaching in this way. Part of it is due to my personality - I am one of those people who has to know how things work, what the plan is, the big picture, etc. I am not happy to simply do what I'm told without explanation, and don't expect my students to be either. In fact, I actively encourage them to question the education they are receiving.

Very insightful question, OP.  And I particularly like Dundee's response on both personal and pedagogical levels.  I think transparency is especially important in skills based courses such as composition because there are so many techniques to get to a skill but those techniques so easily get interpreted as rules by students.  And so the student incorporates the techniques as norms, confronts yet another teacher with different techniques or a lack of patience for rigid frameworks, and voila we end up with the impression that good writing (for example) only means "writing for this teacher."

I try to address this issue in my classes by distinguishing between the end goals and why I am requiring a particular approach to a paper.  I readily identify a few of my idiosyncratic hot buttons (eg. rhetorical questions, over use of "you") and why at this juncture I want them out of the writing. When a student says that they always learned "every essay has three main points," or "every paragraph is five (or seven) sentences" I answer in terms of what I assume was their prior teacher's point was and how we are now working with that goal but beyond that constraint.

Then again, you do want to be judicious.  You don't want to over burden the course with too many provisos, do you?  Oops, just broke two of my rules.

[king_ghidorah]

I think transparency is extremely important, particularly for composition when students are seldom readers and very seldom writers outside of the classroom.  You need to explain to them what and why you are doing things, both so they know there is a purpose to your madness and so they can see how composition techniques can actually fit into their work.  It also shows them that you know what you are doing and they'll respect you for that.

Actually, I wish I'd been trained in this idea early on in my career.

Keep us posted on what you do.  Good discussion.

[msparticularity]

I agree with everyone above that transparency is vital - especially in a course like comp that prepares our students (or fails to!) for so much else that they will encounter in college.

As a former secondary teacher, I am always interested in the importance of modeling the behaviors we want to impart to our students. In the case of teaching reading, for example, we may do a "read-aloud" and a "think-aloud," where we model our process of engaging the written page. In the case of composition, I have had a lot of success being transparent about the assignment and its purposes from my perspective. Then I often lead a brainstorming session on how to successfully approach the assignment, emphasizing the variety of possible strategies. If have found that when I articulate in terms of, "This is how I tend to approach an assignment like this," it also gives students permission to ask questions about how they'd like to approach it. This way I can give them feedback and push them a little if more clarity is needed.

[6and12]

First of all, thank you for all of the insightful responses. All of them have been helpful so far.

king_ghidorah, you said "I wish I'd been trained in this idea early on in my career." As someone who is learning a lot about teaching right now, I feel like this concept has, to some degree, been built into my formal training. I'm curious if this has been the case for the other posters here. Has transparency been something you've come to value through years of practice and experimentation, or was this something that was made clear to you in your training? With that in mind, how have you experimented with it in the classroom? I ask because, at this early stage in my development as a teacher, I still feel very much like I'm experimenting with how I conduct my classes.