Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership: A Guide to Implementing the Transparency Framework Institution-Wide to Improve Learning and Retention

This book offers a comprehensive guide to the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework that has convincingly demonstrated that implementation increases retention and improved outcomes for all students. Its premise is simple: to make learning processes explicit and equitably accessible for all students.

Transparent instruction involves faculty/student discussion about several important aspects of academic work before students undertake that work, making explicit the purpose of the work, the knowledge that will be gained and its utility in students’ lives beyond college; explaining the tasks involved, the expected criteria, and providing multiple examples of real-world work applications of the specific academic discipline. The simple change of making objective and methods explicit – that faculty recognize as consistent with their teaching goals – creates substantial benefits for students and demonstrably increases such predictors of college students’ success as academic confidence, sense of belonging in college, self-awareness of skill development, and persistence.

This guide presents a brief history of TILT, summarizes both past and current research on its impact on learning, and describes the three-part Transparency Framework (of purposes, tasks and criteria). The three sections of the book in turn demonstrate why and how transparent instruction works suggesting strategies for instructors who wish to adopt it; describing how educational developers and teaching centers have adopted the Framework; and concluding with examples of how several institutions have used the Framework to connect the daily work of faculty with the learning goals that departments, programs and institutions aim to demonstrate.

Mary-Ann Winkelmes, PhD, is director of instructional development and research and an associate graduate faculty member in the Department of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a senior fellow at the Association of American Colleges & Universities.

AllisonBoye, Ph.D., is Founding Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning atCollin College. Previously, Dr. Boye was an associate director for academic and pedagogical development in the Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center at Texas Tech University.

Suzanne Tapp, M.A., is the executive director of the Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center at Texas Tech University.

Peter Felten is Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning, Director of the Center for Engaged Learning, and Professor of History at Elon University. His publications include: Transforming Students: Fulfilling the Promise of Higher Education (Johns Hopkins, 2014), and Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching (Jossey-Bass, 2014).