Anyone familiar with the TV show Bluey may be familiar with the adorable/annoying sockpuppet, Unicorse. It appears in a few episodes, mostly when Bluey’s dad, Bandit, is feeling … cheeky. Per the image you see, Unicorse has an adorable/annoying habit when people ask them to do (or not to do)… well, anything. When Unicorse is about to ‘spoil’ a book during storytime, they’re asked not to give away the ending. “Aaaand… why should I care?” (“Because you’ll ruin the story…” “Aaand… why should I care?”) And so on, and so forth…
Ok, Adam, and … why should I care? When it comes to writing course descriptions, learning outcomes, and/or assignments, a lot has been written about SMART goals, observable outcomes, and alignment between these course elements. Yet, we can sometimes take for granted that the deeper purpose(s) of our course(s) are obvious or even visible to students.
The idea of ‘transparency’ in assignment design (Winkelmes et al., 2016) focuses on the benefits of making clear the purpose, task, and criteria for assessment of a given assignment. Their research suggests that transparency can especially benefit students without knowledge of the ‘unwritten rules’ of higher education. In addition, transparency affords instructors a chance to reflect on the ‘value added’ of a given assignment: what is it that students will take away that helps them later in the course, in their major, in their career, and even in their lives as citizens.
I say all of this not to suggest that most courses DON’T have a clear purpose, but only that this deeper meaning and purpose can sometimes go unexpressed. In my experience working with instructors across disciplines, engaging this idea of ‘purpose’ through conversation, in plain language, usually brings out what’s already there: why a given course matters in the grand scheme of things. Reflecting on purpose is an opportunity to drill down to what you value as an instructor, and to remember that you have goals for your students that don’t always show up on the syllabus. While it is often used to suss out ‘problems,’ something like Asking the Five Why’s is another way to consider the core purpose(s) of an assignment, a course, etc. To learn more about transparency, visit the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) website for example assignments (in before/after versions) and more. As always, if you’d like to talk more, reach out to me at asmith@pcad.edu to set up a virtual or in-person meeting.