Course Design: Relevance, Rigor, and Transparency

COURSE DESIGN: RELEVANCE, RIGOR, AND TRANSPARENCY

There are many components to consider when designing courses. Here we will share a framework that helps you create a course designed with equity in mind. 

On this page, we will cover:

 

Introduction to Relevance, Rigor, and Transparency Framework for Equity-Minded Course Design

Before we jump into the framework, let’s level-set what we mean when we talk about “equity-minded” course design.

An equity-minded teaching practice is one in which the instructor approaches all aspects of the course design and instruction with an awareness that inequities are a dysfunction of the various structures, policies, and practices that higher education practitioners can either perpetuate or disrupt.

In the Norton Guide to Equity-Minded Teaching, the authors present an evidence-based framework for online & in-person equity-minded course design. They share that the most effective college faculty design courses attending to relevance, rigor, & transparency.

In the next sections, we will review each of these tenets and then provide some ideas for design for each.

 

Relevance

relevance:  the degree to which learners can identify themselves in a course

What does the research say about relevance? 

  • Motivation is the “engine” of learning, and it is optimized when we create learning experiences that students value. 
  • Common sources of relevance for learning: cultural experiences, goals, and interests; career aspirations 

 

How does relevance relate to equity?

  • In short, relevance is key to motivating students and to learning. 
  • Minoritized students and equity scholars have have long isolated relevance as a challenge/opportunity:
    • Ex: Ginsberg & Wlodkowski’s Culturally Responsive Teaching framework centers relevance as a way to help students develop a positive attitude toward learning, and encourage us to offer students choices based on their experiences, values, needs, and strengths.
  • Race, as a central feature of our identities, is a key source of relevance.

 

Rigor

rigor:  academic challenge that supports student learning and growth

What does the research say about rigor?

  • That the term has been misused and can be exclusionary.
  • That rigor is key to learning.
    • This means that to maximize student learning, we must appropriately challenge them.  
    • In the 1930s, psychologist Lev Vygotsky described the “zone of proximal development” — the optimal level of challenge or “sweet spot” for learning— as a theoretical space existing between what an individual can learn independently and what they can learn with guidance or in partnership with others.

Bloom's Taxonomy pyramid

 

Another way to relate rigor and learning 

  • Six levels of cognitive demand  
  • When Bloom and colleagues studied the questions that commonly occurred in college, they found that over 95% of test questions posed to students required them to only recall information.

 

Bloom's Taxonomy. View full-text description of pyramid

 

How does rigor relate to equity?

  • Rigor is both a critical problem and key solution in relation to equity. 
  • The critical problem: Many teachers and faculty continue to have lower academic expectations for their students of color, often unknowingly—  expectations that suppress student learning and success (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2018). 
  • A key solution: We will only attain educational equity when we hold students to high academic standards. 

Upholding high academic standards is a challenge “at the core of the struggle for educational equity for [minoritized] students today” Emily Schnee.

Transparency

transparency:  the extent to which information that is often implicit or unknown to students is made explicit to them

What does the research say about transparency?

  • In courses where students perceived assignments as more transparently designed, gains were realized in
    • Academic confidence
    • Sense of belonging
    • Mastery of skills that employers value most when hiring
  • Benefits larger for first-generation students, low-income students, and students from historically underrepresented groups

 

What does transparency look like in a course?

  • LEARNING-CENTERED QUALITIES: This is the foundation of a transparent course. It means that documents are written with learners in mind, helping to organize, engage, and challenge them. 
  • PURPOSE: The assignment description clearly states what knowledge or skills students will gain and what practice they will get.
  • TASK: It is clear what the students will do and how they will do it.
  • CRITERIA / ASSESSMENT: The criteria describe what excellence looks like and allow students to effectively self-evaluate.

 

Design Ideas for Your Course

Ideas for designing a relevant and rigorous course

  • Review your course learning objectives
    • Make small tweaks to help students see the course’s relevance to their lives
    • Check for varying levels of Bloom’s taxonomy to ensure students will be cognitively challenged
  • On the first day, or in an intro video, let students know how the course learning goals will help them in their future courses and/or how they will be valued by employers
  • Explain that you have confidence that each student can achieve the learning objectives, and how you will support them in doing so.
  • In the first week of class, after students have reviewed the learning objectives with you:
    • lead a discussion on the following prompt: “What do you think the implications of this course’s content and goals are for society and the disenfranchised.”
    • ask students to reflect on the learning objectives
  • Ask yourself:
    • How have the views of members of majority-population groups shaped your discipline? What voices have been left out? How might you identify potential contributions from people who, historically, have been marginalized?

 

Ideas for making a course more transparent

  • You don’t need to redesign your entire course.
    • Choose an assignment you have used in the past and revise it to ensure it has learning-centered qualities and that the purpose, task, and criteria are clear to students. 
  • Collaborate with colleagues to help you revise an assignment.
    • Enroll in FacDev’s Transparent Assignment Series to work with a community of colleagues to learn more about transparency in teaching
      • Transparent Assignment worksheet
      • Transparent Assignment template
      • Have a one-on-one meeting with a consultant from the Learning Resource Center to get advice on your revised assignment
      • Offered once a semester
        • Three two-hour meetings and one 30-minute one-on-one consultation
        • Fall semester dates: Wednesdays; October 9, 16, 23, & 30; 10 am to noon via Zoom
  • Use resources to learn more on your own.
    • Enroll in FacDev’s Get Up to Speed with Transparency in Teaching
      • Asynchronous, self-paced course; Takes about 5 hours to complete

 

References

Artze-Vega, I., Darby, F., Dewsbury, B., & Imad, M. (2023). The Norton guide to equity-minded teaching. Links to an external site. W.W. Norton and Company.