The Case for TILT

 

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The 30,000 Foot View

At its core, transparency is about equity. When we make assumptions about what people already know, we end of (unintentionally) privileging some people. This happens in a department when new people are hired. Someone more experienced starts throwing around acronyms with no translation; this isn't a problem for those "in the know," but new people might not know what the acronym stands for. No one intentionally meant to exclude the new people, but unless those new people interrupt the conversation (and, often, their directors or senior faculty) and ask the question (which can make them feel stupid), they are not likely understand the term. This happens at least once at every meeting I attend, and it reminds me how easy it is to take for granted a familiarity with the language of higher ed. Someone not knowing the shorthand for processes and groups specific to our campus is NOT a sign of low intelligence or a lack of preparation - they simply haven't heard it before. Without transparency, speaking the same language can (at least figuratively) be difficult. 

In a similar way, lack of transparency impacts students. If I assume that all students are familiar with the norms and expectations of college life, I am unintentionally privileging students with a more traditional academic preparation. For example, teachers who announce office hours at the start of class without context end up giving an advantage to students who recently attended high school or those with family and friends who attended college and know the vocabulary. "Office hours" is misunderstood by a lot of students as time when faculty close their doors and get work done. Not everyone knows or feels welcome to show up and ask questions during those hours, no matter how hard they are struggling. If faculty don't define office hours and explain the purposes and processes behind them, many students will feel like they are on their own. Not understanding the use of office hours has nothing to do with intelligence or a potential to succeed. They simply lack the vocabulary. And, when faculty talk to struggling students later, they might blame them for not attending office hours, interpreting student absence as a lack of motivation or commitment. 

Transparency attempts to fill some of these miscommunications by providing the information that all people need to know at the start of a document or process. It assumes that people need information, and provides the key details before questions come up.  

Student Success Rates

When we narrow our discussion on the need for transparency to the classroom, it is clear. SCC's success rates are actually a little better than the national average - 27.2% of students who start a degree or certificate program complete it within 4 years (200% of the time allotted), according to the SCC Retention and Completion Rates report Links to an external site.. This means that three-quarters of the students who start here at the college leave without accomplishing their goals. 

While there are many different reasons for this - from financial troubles, family needs, work requirements, to lack of motivation or academic preparation - faculty should take a hard look at their responsibilities for student success. Many of the reasons students drop out are their responsibility - no one else can do the work required to succeed. 

At the same time, faculty also have a responsibility in student success; transparency provides a framework for creating assignments that give students the best possibility to succeed. The goal of a transparent assignment is to provide all the info that students need to complete the work - no time spent on figuring out what the faculty means or expects. TILT is about meeting our responsibilities.

The following short video provides a brief overview of how TILTing affects students in the classroom.

 

Why is Transparency Difficult?

Of course it is easy to see why the higher ed system is not already transparent. If you consider the purpose behind many aspects of your college - the meetings, task forces, strategic plans, and hiring committees - they are complicated. At times, plans are put into place with very little thinking behind their purpose. Other projects are implemented for compliance alone. The purpose of some plans are more opaque; a few committees are formed with outcome already established in the minds of some members. Only in the best situations, do we know why are we asked to do some work. So, articulating purpose is complex. 

Tasks are also difficult. College faculty are hired because they are disciplinary experts, but they are not always experts in teaching and learning or in organizational development. College staff and admin are hired for specific technical expertise, but they are also tasked with responsibilities outside of their technical acumen, like committee work, college initiatives, serving the whole student. Because new people are always in and out, it's important to define all the terms and make sure that everyone has access to the background and context of key processes.

If our ultimate goal is student success, then our criteria would be - at its simplest - everyone succeeding: 100% retention and completion rates. In theory, that sounds wonderful. In practice, it is a little more complicated. There are many situations where continuing in college is not in the best interest of the student, and while we might count a withdrawal as a “win” for individuals on a case-by-case circumstance, it is still a “miss” for the college. So, if our goal is probably unreachable, how good is enough? College strive for goals, but achievement is difficult. 

The result is that people are disconnected with college processes, and they fail to get the work done. Think about the last time that a project were rolled out that had little buy-in or little success. Often, we can look to lack a lack in communication the purpose (the importance, the need, the reasons), the task (what was going to be done, by whom), and the criteria (how we know that the project was completed well, what "done" looks like).

 

Classroom Research

The emerging research on the impact of transparency centers on the classroom. Research shows that all students benefit from the additional transparency in assignment design, but that underserved students in particular do better. The initial findings include improvements not only in course grades, but also in a sense of belonging to the college. Students who were the most likely to struggle perform best when faculty breakdown the "hidden" agendas of assignments and don't assume that all students have a familiarity with academic expectations.

Essentially, transparency can help close the institutional gaps.

 

Summary of Research

Lead by Mary-Ann Winkelmes at UNLV, a 2015 study researched the effects of a teaching intervention – using transparent assignments – at seven minority serving institutions. Thirty five faculty who taught more than one section of a class compared the performances of the control group (receiving regular assignments) and the experimental group (receiving two revised, transparent take-home assignments) . 1180 students were involved, and the students whose assignments were transparent and problem-centered made “gains in three areas that are important predictors of students’ success: academic confidence, sense of belonging, and mastery of the skills that employers value most when hiring.” Best of all, while all students benefited from the increased transparency, at-risk students (low income, first generation, underrepresented) saw greater benefits, making significant gains in closing the achievement gap. Another study of 1143 UNLV students showed a significant increase in persistence in freshmen receiving transparent assignments. Additional studies are ongoing.

For a full report, see Peer Review, Winter/Spring 2016. You can read more about it and the work that UNLV has completed (https://tilthighered.com/ (Links to an external site.)) or get a great overview at https://www.aacu.org/peerreview/2016/winter-spring/Winkelmes (Links to an external site.),

Additional research is ongoing. Community and technical colleges across WA state participated in a large TILT project in 2019, and thousands of students completed the TILT survey. Early analysis of the data confirms that students in courses with at least two TILTed assignments have higher academic confidence and a sense of belonging at their institutions. More information will be available in the future on this data set, along with more impacts on SCC students.