Talking to Students about Course Design
While CDI offered instructors the opportunity to talk to one another about their design choices, it also helped them develop strategies for talking to their students about the purpose of these choices for their learning.
For example, when Smith learned about a variety of teaching modalities, including Structured Active In-Class Learning, he decided to spend the next twelve months redesigning his course to include less lecture time and more in-class learning opportunities. The change has been effective, in part, Smith says, because CDI helped him develop a vocabulary for his design choices. “It helps me talk to students about why we do things.” The feedback from students on the new design, he says, is notable for what they aren’t saying—students don’t question the purpose of the work they do.
Talking to students about the design of the course has also given instructors the opportunity to build community with students, too.
Rashida Ng of the Weitzman School of Design was preparing to teach her first-year seminar on race and climate justice. One of her goals for the course was “to build a strong and supportive academic community where students feel vulnerable in their learning, but also supported.” While she had been teaching for more than two decades, this would be the first time she was teaching first year students. How would she build community for first year students in particular? One way would be through class discussion. Her courses were usually more project-driven, so she was looking for new techniques to foster and facilitate conversation in class.
Ng recalls that some of the most valuable things she learned at CDI centered on different facilitation techniques she could use. For example, she learned about the Gallery Walk, an activity that allows students to work in small groups, and then walk around the room observing each other’s work. Since CDI, the Gallery Walk has become a staple for her course. Ng has now taught her first-year seminar twice. At the end of the first offering, Ng told her students the course was new and gathered input on the course design. Students were shocked to learn the course was new, and said what she had helped them build in class time together. “A lot of students shared how important the community space [of the class] has been for them.”
Fong also spoke about how valuable it was to talk to her students about the course design. At CDI, she learned that that she didn’t have to wait until the end of the semester to ask her students to weigh in on the course; in fact, polling students earlier demonstrated to her students that she cared about their input.
This was vital information when Fong was teaching her new course for the first time. Midway through the semester, she felt a lull. She had some ideas for how to proceed, but she decided to take some class time to ask students for ideas. The students suggested a weekly project that would build on research they had done earlier in the term. Fong incorporated the assignment immediately, and the energy rolled back into the classroom. At the end of the semester, Fong was curious what students thought about the change and conducted exit interviews with students. They said they felt a personal connection to what they were learning. One student told her, “Kecia, you make us feel like we have something valuable to say.’”
