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I have a feeling that this is going to be the crummiest semester of my teaching career.  We’re tired here at my small undergraduate Catholic college outside of Boston.  I’ve toggled back and forth between classes on Zoom and in person.  As a result of all that, we’re now several weeks into the semester, and I saw some of my students’ faces for the first time yesterday.  Well, the top half anyway.  I’m sick of masks. The parts of the faces that I could see look tired.  In fact, my students look about as exhausted as they usually do right before Thanksgiving.  They tell me they are drained from the isolation, the uncertainty, and threat of going remote again.  I am exhausted too.  And we’re just halfway through a 15-week semester with no spring break (like many colleges, we canceled it to keep positivity rates down). All mental health numbers seem to go in the wrong direction.  The college keeps sending out resources about support groups and numbers to call.  I just got an email from my dean urging us to cut students’ workload this semester, to monitor their mental health, and to care for ourselves as well. At this point, my preference would be to cancel the rest of the semester so that we can all sleep until May but since that probably is not an option, I’m going to follow my dean’s advice.  It’s triage time. Here’s my plan and survival guide: 1. Give the students more time to write their papers When the students in my gen ed classes have a paper due, they won’t have any reading assignments.  Instead, they’ll submit three topic ideas on Monday, a shitty first draft on Wednesday, and the actual paper on Friday.  We’ll use our class time on Monday and Wednesday as informal paper workshops.  I won’t read the drafts at all; I’ll simply check that they submitted them.  I’ll invite them to talk to me or visit the Writing Center if they want feedback. 2. Don’t teach any new materials In an optimistic moment in December, I included several new readings on the syllabus for my brand-new Catholic intellectual tradition course.  They are good readings and they would improve the course.  But I don’t know how to teach them.  Honestly, I can’t even remember what they were about.  So I’m going to skip them altogether and instead use materials I know well.  I’ll accept that my Catholic intellectual tradition course will be light on Catholic readings this semester, and I’ll rely heavily on theology major Joe in the class to bring an informed Catholic perspective to our discussions. 3. Cancel classes In case you haven’t noticed, teaching and learning on Zoom is much harder and less effective than having class in person.  Because of that, I’m going to avoid having class on Zoom whenever I can: If we get another snowstorm (did I mention I live in the Northeast?), I’ll just cancel class. I suspect we’ll get more learning done that way because it will give us a chance to rest and it will generate good will. Both will increase the chances of us having a good class when we’re back in the classroom the next day, so I’m trading two mediocre meetings for one good one.  It’ll be worth it. If we must go remote again, I’ll cut back on class time for the students. We’ll all have class on Monday and then half will attend on Wednesdays and the rest on Fridays.  I didn’t do this before because I couldn’t figure out how to have them use that extra hour without generating tons of extra work for myself (I’ve never had good luck with independent work for first year gen ed students).  But now I have a plan.  I’ll simply tell them to spend the extra time on the next homework assignment and choose not to feel guilty about it. 4. Stop obsessing about Zoom tuneout It’s harder to pay attention on Zoom, and we’ve all spent hours trying to figure out how to keep our students engaged.  I’m done.  I give up. I refuse to adopt my colleagues’ increasingly draconian suggestions.  I don’t want to create a teaching environment filled with mistrust and even if I did, I don’t think it would work. The students are so tired that pushing them more won’t help. I’ll focus on those who are physically in the classroom and those on Zoom who are paying attention.  I’ll remember that some of the students who keep their cameras off and refuse to talk really are listening.  (I know that because I’ve seen their writing.)  I’ll accept that some won’t pay attention. I’ll keep checking in on those who seem to disappear, referring them out as needed. Most of all, I’ll remember that it’s not personal.  They are tuning out because they are exhausted and sick of Zoom, not because they want to disrespect me and my class. 5.Help the students cope Last week, a first-year student looked out at me from his Zoom box on my computer and asked, “Is it always going to be like this?”  Suddenly, they were all paying attention, looking at me, intently.  I put on my best confident professorial voice and said ‘no.’  I agreed that it feels like that now but I talked about vaccines and hope.  But I also acknowledged that this semester will suck.  And I promised that we’d muddle through it together.  We will. Notes: I wish I had invented the phrase ‘shitty first draft’, but I got it from Anne Lamott.  It’s from her essay “Shitty first drafts” in Bird by Bird – great essay!  I did create the lazy staged assignment described above all by myself though.

I am familiar with what liminality means, but I have never put the Israelite’s journey in the wilderness and liminality together until recently. Liminality was first used in the discipline of anthropology and then applied to ritual and other areas of research. It is a term to describe being in between, being in the threshold, where a person is in transitional stage, not belonging to the past or future. I have used the term to describe the biblical Job during his suffering. Liminality is a time of confusion, vulnerability, uncertainty, and even danger. But then it also reflects a time of possibility, potential, and becoming. For example, when a person passes from singlehood to a married status, that person can no longer return to the old single self, but has been transformed into a new sense of self with someone else to live and care for. Similarly, when one is between jobs, that person is also in the liminal stage. In a way, all schools are going through this liminality during the COVID-19 crisis. Being in a pandemic is being in liminality, with all the confusion, vulnerability, and uncertainty that go along with it, not to mention danger. Being in transition is not comfortable. Belonging nowhere is painful. Having a confused status is never fun. Yet, being in COVID-19 is also a time of profound possibility, potential, and becoming. The world will not be the same after COVID-19. Many professions and fields will forever be changed in the post-COVID-19 world, and education is among them. In the future, online education and programs will be a necessity rather than an option or a suggestion. Remote learning will be the norm. The idea of expecting people to come to one’s campus physically for education will soon be in the distant past, if  that is not a reality already. During the podcast conversation I had with Dr. Lynne Westfield in early February 2021, she asked me about the future of my school: “Is it bright?”  I responded: “The future is online but everything else is uncertain.” Indeed, with COVID-19, all schools are not just in the same boat, but in the same storm, as Westfield rightly remarked. Living in liminality can be frustrating, but we can choose to see the transforming potential it has for all of us if we discern attentively what God is doing at this moment of history as administrators, faculty, and students in our particular contexts of formation. If we try to see beyond the chaotic present into the future, perhaps we can see ourselves living in a prophetic time, a critical time for reflection on things that matter. After leaving Sinai for the Promised Land, the Israelites were stranded in the wilderness for forty years. It was during that crucial time through trials, suffering, rebelliousness, and dependence, that the Israelites became the people of God. It was also during that difficult time, that the presence of God was with them (Ex 40:38). Being in liminality can be meaningful and hopeful.

For the last fifteen years or so, I’ve done freelance editing work as a side gig. This winter break, while moping around with a mysterious months-long lung infection (not COVID... probably?), I edited a colleague’s book manuscript, which focused, in part, on neoliberalism (a slippery and contested term) and the deployment of certain reductive conceptions of religion in various development contexts around the world. It was a super interesting read, but that’s not what I want to focus on here. Instead, I want to take inspiration from her critique of various neoliberal terms/concepts and consider one particularly prevalent in higher education—that of “best practices.” This is a phrase we use all the time, especially related to online teaching and learning. I think we have good reason to be suspicious of this idea. Examples of “best practices” abound, even at Wabash. Take the list below, from a Stanford’s Tomorrow’s Professor post, which summarizes a chapter from the older version of The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips (2010): Best practice 1: Be present at the course site. Best practice 2: Create a supportive online course community. Best practice 3: Develop a set of explicit expectations for your learners and yourself as to how you will communicate and how much time students should be working on the course each week. Best practice 4: Use a variety of large group, small group, and individual work experiences. Best practice 5: Use synchronous and asynchronous activities. Best practice 6: Ask for informal feedback early in the term. Best practice 7: Prepare discussion posts that invite responses, questions, discussions, and reflections. Best practice 8: Search out and use content resources that are available in digital format if possible. Best practice 9: Combine core concept learning with customized and personalized learning. Best practice 10: Plan a good closing and wrap activity for the course. Upon first read, who could argue with these? Create a supportive course community? That’s my jam! Develop a set of explicit expectations? I love transparency! It’s not that the practices on these “best” lists are bad ideas, per se. It’s not that I’m opposed to asking for informal feedback or planning a good wrap activity or [fill in the blank]. It’s that such “best practices” are often presented as generic, broadly applicable, value neutral, consensus based, and informed by research, when they aren’t always or necessarily. (See Wendy Brown's Undoing the Demons [2017] for an in-depth critical consideration of this concept.) It may not be clear how to operationalize them in any given context; it may not be possible to do so. Some could even be detrimental if operationalized in certain ways by certain instructors for certain students. Best practices are ostensibly good for everyone, when, in fact, they may be good for no one. (This reminds me of the point of The End of Average (2016), when Todd Rose shows that an “average” person doesn’t exist, so when we design for an average person, we are actually designing for nobody.) Worse, in my mind, is that there can feel like no good way to dispute or critique “best practices.” Especially when written in the imperative, like those above, they don’t exactly invite reflection, conversation, inquiry, experimentation, or collaboration. When we start throwing around the phrase “best practices,” particularly those of us in positions to influence other instructors and what goes on in the college classroom, I worry we start to become “part of a machinery suppressing” faculty. After all, these are the “best” teaching practices. Everyone agrees. Who agrees? Well, the teaching “experts”: instructional designers, staff at centers for teaching excellence, faculty who have won teaching awards, those who publish on this topic. And who has time to question them, especially when everyone is just trying to stay on top of teaching and research and service (amid an ongoing pandemic, nonetheless!)? Trying to also stay on top of literature related to teaching may simply feel like too much. Our teaching contexts are incredibly distinct and diverse. There are so many “situational factors” for us to consider as we design and implement our courses, especially right now. I can’t be sure that what works (some days, ha!) for my Religions of the World course will work for a colleague in my department teaching another section of this very same class during the very same semester. Okay, so creating community seems like a good idea, particularly online, but how I go about doing that this semester over Zoom in my upper-level Religion and Film class will (and should, I think) be very different than how a friend does it in his upper-level U.S. Judiciary Zoom class, even though we are in the same college and have rather similar teaching philosophies. Best practices are somehow specifically evidence-based, but also somehow broad enough to make room for every possible instructional context. That just can’t be. I am fully in support of learning from one another. I am fully in support of sharing and spreading what is known (and some things are known) about teaching and learning. I am fully in support of experimentation and growth, especially in one’s own classroom. I am fully in support of professional development initiatives that encourage faculty to consider what they’re doing in their instruction and—this is the most important—why. I am not convinced that notions of “best practice” necessarily promote any of this. It makes me nervous when anyone starts implying or advising that there is a set, static list (like a top ten) of teaching strategies that will work for everyone, regardless of context, and that if we would all just follow these practices, we would be set. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but teaching just doesn’t work that way.

As faculty become more adept at the online learning experience (of necessity for many; reluctantly for some) many lament the loss of the classroom experience. There is a real sense of loss in not being together with students in the classroom, seeing faces, engaging in discussion, flipping through that awesome Powerpoint presentation one spent hours refining, enjoying the energy when the classroom environment is charged with learning. While we teachers may miss the experience of lecturing, presenting, and explaining, it remains true that students learn what THEY do, not what WE do (lecture, explain, expound, wax eloquent, et cetera). Research demonstrated that 70 to 80 percent of classroom teaching experience is “teacher talk” (Hattie 2020). But as previously noted, and as paradoxical as it may seem, learning is not an outcome of teaching. There is a challenge in shifting one’s stance from teaching-focused to learning-focused, especially for teachers whose only or primary experience of teaching is the classroom. The shift requires a deep understanding of the cognitive and affective processes of learning that happen within the student. The good news is that the online environment leans toward student-focused learning rather than teaching. To oversimplify, this forces teachers to become designers of a student learning experience rather than instructional performers. Fortunately, the online learning environment offers almost unlimited opportunities for students to do something in order to achieve learning. It can be helpful to focus on domains of learning and align the student learning experience with the desired learning outcome. Here are things students can do to both achieve learning and demonstrate learning. Cognitive Learning Domain Explain Examine Evaluate Critique Defend a position Posit a theory or proposition Affective Learning Domain Give an opinion Share an experience Reflect on a feeling response Express an attitude Share a perspective Demonstrate empathy Skills or Competencies Domain Demonstrate Present a tutorial Write an essay or paper Compose an argument Complete a project Instructors should strive for higher-order demonstration of learning or activities, and avoid rudimentary activities (“list,” “identify”). For more ways to get students to DO, see Student Engagement Methods: A Checklist. For more: Billings, L., and T. Roberts, “From Mindless to Meaningful,” (2014). Hattie, J., “Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning,” (2012). Ripp, P., “Cultivating Passionate Learners in Common Core Classrooms,” (2014). Soranno, P., “Improving Student Discussions in Graduate and Undergraduate Courses: Transform the Discussion Leader,” (2010).

Giving constructive feedback to students is one of the most powerful pedagogical functions a teacher can provide for learners. Yet, teachers often are reluctant to provide feedback for various reasons, like the fear of coming across as critical or the risk of hurting someone’s feelings. But the fact is that good learners crave teacher feedback—even in the form of challenge for deeper thinking. Constructive instructor feedback in an online course helps promote and maintain student engagement. The following four-step approach to effective feedback can make for an efficient “formula” for providing feedback without getting overwhelmed. Additionally, instructors can offer this four-step approach as the standard practice for students’ own feedback responses in discussion forums. Here is a four-step process for giving constructive feedback in an online class (this works just as well in a classroom context). A Four-Step Approach to Constructive Feedback Step 1: Clarify The first step in this feedback procedure is the question of clarification. These are questions that can be answered with very brief responses. They do not raise substantive or philosophical issues, and they are not judgmental. They are merely a way to establish that you heard and understood what was said and/or meant and get clear on important details that affect understanding. Asking students to clarify their responses helps them take responsibility for their thinking and for their answers. It also helps them correct vagueness and to clarify their own initial thinking and “go deeper.” Examples: “Did you mean to say…?” “How are you using the term ___. Can you provide a definition?” “When you said x, did you mean y?” “Was it a sophomore class?” “Were you the only teacher?” “Was this at the start of the year?” “How long was this unit?” “Can you give an example?” Step 2: Value Next, state what you value in the student’s effort or response. Too often, we skip this step and go right onto points of contention, assuming people know we appreciate their engagement and effort in responding. But it’s amazing how much everyone needs affirmation that their efforts are heard and appreciated. Tell the student what makes sense, what seems inspired, what aligns with your own perceptions and experience, what informs your own thinking. Or simply acknowledge a good effort. This sets up a great foundation from which to deal with the (often minor, but sometimes large) points of disagreement or challenges to deeper or more responsible thinking. Step 3: Challenge At the third step, get into those ideas that you want your students to wonder about or wrestle with. This is a good time to use techniques like using “I-messages” (“When you talk about doing x, I think about…” or “When I’ve done x in the past, students have…”) or raising questions by wondering rather than pronouncing judgments (“I wonder if x would happen when I did y,” or “When you suggested x, I wondered if it might…” or “What do you think would happen if…”). This is the phase for honest, constructive concerns, and, at the same time, for delicacy. If we establish a culture of respectful questioning and a challenge for learning that makes it clear that reasonable people can disagree and differences in contexts really do make different solutions effective, such a climate can keep conversation going. Staying in conversation means we help students learn how be able to understand each other better over time. Step 4: Suggestions for Deeper Thinking/Exploration Finally, after exploring the questions that arise in response to someone’s work, we can offer suggestions for deeper engagement. For example: “From our perspective, and the limited view we have of the complexity of the situation, I wonder if [suggestion] would make a difference?” “Once I tried [some suggested solution] in a similar situation, and z happened.” “I’ve heard of someone doing [a suggestion] in the face of such challenges, and I was so inspired by that idea!” “What if you [a suggestion]?” “I wonder if you’ve tried [a suggestion]?” Adding “...what do you think?” to these types of questions invites a response for deeper engagement. The key here is staying genuinely open to the possibility that you don’t know what’s best for this situation, but that you hope you’ll be able to offer something helpful, some bit of insight that might make sense in the complexity of the question or dilemma the person is managing or attempting to address. Adapted from an online course from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, WIDE Program.

We are early into this novel and challenging COVID semester and starting to get feedback on the (for many) new modes of teaching and learning—namely, online/virtual experiences. One message from students is that they are feeling overwhelmed with keeping up or “figuring out” the LMS or the online course. I’m sympathetic. . . somewhat. Student reports of feeling overwhelmed is not new; some may say it’s a defining characteristic of students. I remember the response from so many of my professors: “You think you’re busy now, wait till you start working in the real world.” Admittedly, they were right. I suspect part of the problem of students feeling overwhelmed is the result of online courses being too “packed” with activities, methods, unnecessary assignments, and anxious attempts by instructors to cover content. While those happen in traditional classroom courses, the liabilities are exacerbated in the online environment. The One Question to Ask Instructors and course designers can achieve greater effectiveness and elegance in their courses by asking one question before using a method or student learning activity. That question is: “What pedagogical function does this method or activity serve?” By that we mean, Will the activity help students achieve the learning outcome? Is the method worth the effort related to student learning outcomes? Is the method or learning activity directly aligned with a course learning outcome/objective? Pedagogical Functions The pedagogical functions of methods and student learning activities fall into four categories. If a method or activity does not clearly serve these functions, don’t use them. The four functional categories are: (1) orientation, (2) transition, (3) evaluation, and (4) application. Orientation. Orientation methods or learning activities are used to create motivation for learning. Creating “interest” is insufficient for meaningful learning. Motivation goes to meeting an unrealized need. An orientation activity may involve helping students become aware of or identifying why they need to learn what your course offers. Orientation methods can also provide a structure for interpreting or visualizing the course content. Finally, orientation methods help introduce the course or lesson learning outcomes. Transition. Methods that provide the function of transition are those that help students go from the known or previously covered material to the new, novel, or next content to be covered. They provide a bridge to help make connections for more efficient learning. These are methods or learning activities with which the student is familiar and often use examples and analogies. Evaluation. Evaluation methods or learning activities are used to help students, and you, the instructor, evaluate previously learned content before moving on to new material, or, prior to an application activity. These activities are more effective when they are student-centered or student-developed. They help students give evidence of understanding and help instructors uncover misunderstandings. One rule to remember: if you are not going to evaluate it, don’t teach it. Application. This one is self-evident. Application methods or student activities are those that provide students opportunity to actually apply what they have learned. Student attainment of learning should be “demonstrable.” Therefore, choose application methods that facilitate ways students can demonstrate their learning. Students demonstrate application by using what they have learned in new or novel ways and/or in real-world situations (and sometimes in simulated situations). Application methods should be directly aligned with the published course learning outcomes. Can you identify how your teaching/learning methods or student learning activities serve one of the four pedagogical functions? Here’s a challenge: to avoid overwhelming your students in your online course choose one method or learning activity for each of the four pedagogical functions. That can be sufficient to achieve your course’s learning intent without overwhelming your students.

I have a confession to make. When everything moved online in the spring I detested everyone in every Zoom class and work meeting in which I participated. Okay, I didn’t quite detest my students and colleagues, but there was great resentment there. I hated working from home. Always have. My home is sacred space—a sanctuary from the difficulties of the world. A place to rest and play. But now all these people were invading my sacred space. I felt like I had turned my home into my classroom/office, and I wanted my home back. All the work-from-home experts talk about having designated areas and divisions. I tried to do that for myself and thought that students would do it for themselves as well. Then I had to design a week-long concentrated class that would meet synchronously on Zoom, and the idea that we would pretend that we were in a classroom separate from our home felt a bit silly for a class running from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every day for a week. And while there is something to having a designated work space, my home office is still in my home. So instead of ignoring the fact that we were all in class at home, I incorporated the home. I started by asking myself two questions: What does it mean to invite a class into your home? In what ways is holistic learning enhanced when each person is in their individual sacred space? I now approach all Zoom classes as an additional way to teach to the whole person and now incorporate the home throughout the course. I begin by asking about the space they have welcomed me into. Many people spend time on their Zoom space as they normally would on their home space when guests are coming over. At the beginning of the class, I ask them to introduce us to their space, whether it be a virtual background or the corner of their home they have prepared for us to see. Backgrounds can also be used as a visual representation of a concept. For my adolescent spirituality class, I encouraged students to use virtual backgrounds of a place that represents spiritual significance. Most students removed the virtual backgrounds after presenting them, but then spoke about their kitchen in the background, which led to a conversation about eating as a spiritual practice. When discussing the china cabinet behind one student and how the china was passed down from various family members, a conversation began about the spiritual practice of connecting with ancestors—a powerful spiritual practice for many cultures. In my Administrative Leadership class we each choose a background that makes us feel like a leader. If students choose to keep their cameras off, they can pick a picture for us to see instead. These exercises allow us to explore a concept through visual representation. This is often done in physical classes through pictures. Why not do this in Zoom classrooms with backgrounds and homes? An educator can also incorporate their students’ homes by asking class participants to find something in their home that represents a particular concept or theory being discussed in class. Certainly, not everybody has the same things accessible to them in their homes and the goal is not to show off what one has, but since any understood concept can be explained by just about any symbol, students can deepen their understanding by articulating a concept using a symbol and learn the complexities of a concept or theory by hearing their classmates do the same. I also design activities that can be done with other people in students’ homes. This is a little trickier because of the variety of living situations; I certainly do not want to pry. So, I acknowledge the diversity and simply note assignments which students can do with other people if they so choose. Once I embraced the process, the opportunities to incorporate the home seem endless. The fact is, we are not divided beings. I always work from home even if that means coming up with an idea in the shower or discussing over dinner that interesting thing a student said. I am not a divided person, and neither are my students. Teaching to the whole person means incorporating the space where the teaching occurs. Teaching and learning are sacred wherever they occur, and the learning space is so much richer, fuller, and wonderfully complex when it is the space that individuals have spent lots of time designing, cultivating, and nurturing. I am truly grateful for the invitation.

Regardless of how one may feel about online learning (now, during COVID-19, thrust upon us, the willing and unwilling), admittedly it is now a vital and critical academic and professional skill. Helping students become proficient in online learning has arguably become as important as mastering academic content in whatever discipline one teaches. One way to help students become more proficient at online learning is to actively assess their performance in online discussion forums. Most instructors at least provide a list of minimum expectations, something like: Post at least two entries for every forum; avoid non-substantive posts (“I agree”); post by a deadline for a session; cite references, respond to questions from the professor, etc. Some instructors place limits on word count. Some insist on complete sentences and proper grammar. In addition to assessing engagement with the course content (academic concepts and course texts, for example), and checking for adherence to minimum expectations as noted above, instructors can help students become more proficient online learners by assessing metacognition student performance, those transferable skills and competencies that will serve students well as they become lifelong online learners. Metacognitive assessment helps students become critically aware of themselves as thinkers and learners. Robert E. MacDonald refers to these as part of the “informal observations” [i] that instructors engage in as part of the evaluation of student learning. Here are examples of metacognition student performance in online discussion forums that you can look for, assess, and for which you can provide feedback to students: The consistency in the amount and quality of their posts. The quality and kinds of questions students ask during online discussions. The cooperative peer learning skills students demonstrate in discussion forums. The manner in which they receive directions and challenges from the instructor. The way students respond to questions from the professor and other students. Their ability to follow through on assignments and activities to completion. Their level of initiative in asking for help, seeking information, offering critique, and questioning assumptions. Their ability to uncover their own bias and prejudices. Their ability to recognize their misunderstanding and demonstrate corrective thinking. Their ability to come up with novel and original examples. The quality of their written skill in expressing and explaining ideas. Their ability to manage their time and participate in online discussion forums, as well as complete assignments, promptly. It is no longer enough to help our students master academic content related to our particular scholarship. Part of the work of teaching in this technological age is helping our students become better learners, and that includes becoming more adept at learning in online and virtual environments. Notes [i] Robert E. MacDonald,  A Handbook for Beginning Teachers: Facing the Challenge of Teaching in Today’s Schools (New York, NY: Pearson, 1999).

As we begin thinking about our fall courses (sorry!), we may again find ourselves facing unfamiliar teaching contexts; some of us may be teaching courses that are online or hybrid or “HyFlex” (*insert brain-exploding emoji here*) for the first time; some of us may be trying to make in-person classes work, under the totally compromised conditions of social distancing; some of us may be anticipating a pivot, yet again, as we watch the Covid caseloads rise in our states. Now, more than ever, it is important for us to be “transparent” in our teaching. Transparency will help students learning online for the first time, students for whom the college experience is one big “hidden curriculum” anyway, students at some remove from their instructors and peers, students in generally uncertain times. The concept of “transparency” in learning and teaching in higher education emerged out of the work of Mary-Ann Winkelmes, now at Brandeis University. This Faculty Focus article also offers a helpful synopsis, but, essentially, when designing assignments, it’s important for us to be clear, explicit, and direct about the “purpose” (i.e., why have students do the assignment), “task” (i.e., what students are being asked to do and how), and “criteria” (i.e., how their work will be assessed). One thing I love about this transparent teaching intervention is that, while it benefits all students, it has been shown to especially help students from underserved populations succeed. It’s not always easy to be transparent, so some reflection and excavation may be needed here. There are a lot of differences between experts and novices, but one distinction is that so much for experts is tacit, intuitive, hidden, seamless, “natural.” I recently picked up bike-riding again, for the first time in 25 years, and it has been astounding to discover how many difficult, intricate, and unexpected steps are involved in what seem to be the simplest of actions: braking entails figuring out which foot to put on the ground when I stop, and not toppling over as I do so; signaling entails being able to take one hand off the handlebars and still maintain balance (while not toppling over as I do so); riding the mile and a half to work entails being able to make it up previously unappreciated hills with a complex arrangement of gear switching and leg burning (and not toppling over as I do so . . . are you noticing a theme?). Yet my cyclist friends make this all look easy! So, when I lead workshops on transparency, I encourage all of my expert colleagues to think about the following questions in order to unearth their assignments: Purpose (the skills practiced, the knowledge gained): What are the learning objectives for the assignment? Do these objectives align with any of your overall course objectives or goals? Why is the assignment important for students to do? How might this assignment have importance or relevance beyond the course? What would be an “authentic” assignment for this subject matter, field, or associated profession? Task (what to do and how to do it) Does the kind of assignment make sense, given its purpose? What is the genre or type of assignment? Who is the audience and what role(s), if any, should students take on? Is there a sequence or “scaffolded” series of steps that students should follow? Are there any pitfalls to avoid along the way? Criteria (what excellence looks like, with criteria in advance to help students to self-evaluate): By what standards will the assignment be graded? Is there a rubric or checklist that students can be given, at the outset, to guide their work? What opportunities will students have had to practice before the final deadline? Who will give formative feedback besides you? Are there any excellent examples (especially annotated ones) for students to learn from? I began to incorporate transparency into my own assignments several years ago. Check out this “movie review” assignment, from my Religion & Film course, to see how I tried to clarify purpose, task, and criteria. What might this look like in your classes? Going further, some colleagues at the University of Virginia and I developed an assignment rubric to help faculty gauge the transparency of their assignments. We wanted to be as transparent as possible about transparency! Good luck.

When our courses went online in the spring, many of our students kept their cameras turned off in class. It was eerie. When my students wouldn’t say anything, I felt like I was speaking into a void, and my imagination started running wild. Was anybody else really out there? Maybe they had all just . . . left? Even when most students were talking, I wondered about those who weren’t. Were they still paying attention? I had no idea. It’s tempting to address this problem by adding a strict camera policy to our syllabi for the fall: Students must keep the camera on during online classes. Several of my colleagues are doing just that. I understand the impulse, and I agree that we need to find ways to help our students stay focused in our online classes. Making sure that we can see them and that they know it would be a simple start. But let’s think more before we add a camera policy to our syllabi. Why do students want to turn their cameras off in the first place? I’m sure some of them do it so that they can goof off without their professors noticing. But not all of them: Some students are embarrassed about what people will see in their homes: Poverty. A mess. A crowded space. A virtual background will hide all that, but students can only use one if their computer meets certain system requirements. On an older computer with older software, the virtual background won’t work. And of course, poor students are more likely to have an older computer. The camera makes some students acutely self-conscious, which makes sense given that it broadcasts a closeup of one’s face to the entire class for the entire class period. My favorite description of the experience is from “Why Zoom is terrible”: “You feel like every eyeball is on you, like a very intimidating job interview." I share this experience. Honestly, just reading the line from the New York Times makes my heart race. After the first painful month of Zoom meetings, I began turning the camera off as often as possible. It made the meetings less exhausting, and it became much easier for me to focus and to listen to what people were saying. If students are feeling overly self-conscious, they won’t learn well and won’t speak much. Are there other reasons for keeping the cameras on? We might think that seeing each other’s faces improves communication. In non-virtual face-to-face interactions, it does. Without noticing it, we process and interpret a flood of subtle facial cues, adding to what we learn from the other person’s words and tone of voice. But on Zoom, the imperfect video feed obscures those crucial small cues. We just don’t see the faces well enough, and so, we get faulty cues which can mislead us. We might communicate better with the cameras off. Requiring cameras to be on probably helps some students pay attention and the cameras allow us to see that our students are still there. But seeing their faces probably doesn’t improve our conversations, and the cameras make other students self-conscious, and thus less likely to participate and pay attention. So, can we find other ways of checking that our students are paying attention? I think so. In my class, we’ll develop a set of norms together. I plan to ask them: How do we normally show each other that we’re paying attention and that what others are saying matters to us? If we have cameras off, most of our usual ‘I’m listening’ signals won’t work, so what should we do instead? I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with! In the meantime, here are some ideas of my own for confirming that they are paying attention: Gentle cold calling (soft-ball questions). Have them type questions, comments, and answers to questions in the chat. Mini quizzes or mini papers partway through class. Exit slip at the end of class: “What was the most important thing you learned in class today and what question do you have?” All of these will be low-stakes assignments; and students will get full credit if it looks like they paid attention. Like the rest of us, I am looking forward to seeing my students’ faces again, but my Zoom class is not the right time for that. I’ll save that for office hours and small group discussions. In class, I’ll settle for their profile pictures and their voices. Note: I wish the idea about developing a set of norms was my own, but I got it from one of my esteemed colleagues at Stonehill.