By Kate Cammack, CfT co-director
TLDR: Can we be academically rigorous and also offer flexibility and support to students? Of course – but even if we endorse this tenet in theory, how do we walk the walk? Here are a few small ways to turn both dials up at once.
Choosing the right spots for “challenge”
My general sense of academic rigor has evolved since I first started teaching. In my early years, my students enjoyed a winning combination of cognitively complex but underscaffolded work, rapid-fire pace, and dense readings that lacked any context or orientation. Rigorous, right?!
Looking back, I think I wasn’t thinking carefully about what “rigor” or “challenge” actually meant. What did I actually want students to be putting their brains toward, and how could I help them prioritize and focus on those things?
In other words, how might I make my course easier, in order for my students to be more challenged?
The nature of challenging, intellectual work
Academic rigor and “intellectual challenge” are terms that can be tricky to define.
Do they refer to the cognitive demand of the course, where higher-order skills on Bloom’s cognitive domain reflect a greater degree of intellectual “rigor”?
Could affective skill development be a viable way to challenge students? This seems challenging to me, as an instructor and as a student; if done well, it could also be transformative.
(source)
What about metacognitive skills, which enable students to think about their own thinking?
Regardless of what challenging work you’re asking of your students, it’s equally important to also consider what you, as an instructor, can make easier for them so that they can put the maximum amount of possible brain power toward the “right type of hard.”
Other things that make courses hard for students
Cognitive demand is one the type of “hard” that we likely strive for. But many of the other “hards” of a course are actually other pedagogical choices that we can adjust without impacting this primary goal.
Briefly, researchers surveyed students in 100- and 300-level biology courses about their perceptions of what made each class “hard” or “easy.” Then, students’ responses were coded into categories: cognitive demand, preparation/interest coming into the course, workload, pace, relevance of content, alignment between content and assessments (e.g., did exams cover key content), and faculty support.
First, many students reported that courses were “hard” or “easy” based largely on how the course was designed or conducted (Fig 2, below). Specific examples include course structure, pace, assessment design, and so forth – in other words, all pedagogical decisions that we make when we design our syllabus, choose course materials, craft assignments, and conduct each class.
FIGURE 2. Student perceptions of what makes a college biology course hard. The 100-level students (black, n = 155) defined hard courses as those that have a high workload and low faculty support and seem to focus on disparate facts the students struggle to see as important. The 300-level students (gray, n = 39) recognized workload and preparation as key factors that make courses hard, but also noted that higher cognitive levels make courses harder. Overall response patterns differ for 100- and 300-level students (χ2 = 39.016, df = 6, p = 0.00000071).
Second, students were able to identify “hard” or “easy” aspects of the same course, using these categories (Fig 5-6, below). For instance, students in an active learning course could discriminate between aspects of that particular course that made it hard (cognitive demand) and aspects that made it easy (instructor support).
FIGURE 5. Student perception of what makes “this” active-learning college biology course easy. The 100-level students (black bars, n = 41) defined the active-learning course as easy. The lowest contributor was the cognitive demand. The 300-level students (gray bars, n = 11) recognized the active-learning course as easy, indicating that it was easy because the content was logical, there was a high degree of learning support provided by faculty members, and it had a manageable workload and clear alignment.
FIGURE 6. Student perception of what makes “this” active-learning college biology course hard. The 100-level students (black bars, n = 45) defined the active-learning course as hard and subsequently characterized that difficulty as arising from the cognitive demand required of them in the course, the workload, and their lack of preparation for the course. The 300-level students (gray bars, n = 5) recognized the “active-learning course” as hard, with all students defining it as hard because of the high cognitive demand.
Note that students’ responses on many of these categories changed between the 100- and 300-level course. For instance, more 300-level students reported their course was hard because of the “high cognitive demand” than did the 100-level students. While many students said that a “low/manageable workload” made a course easier, this was more pronounced in the 100-level students, many of whom were first-year students and thus more likely to be adjusting to college.
Finally, students cited that faculty support was most important in courses “where they learned the most” (Fig7, below). While students don’t always accurately assess their own learning, they are paying attention to what faculty are doing, why they’re (perceived to be) doing it, and how it contributes to their success.
FIGURE 7. Comparison of 100- and 300-level student responses to courses wherein they learned the most. Bars represent frequencies of response. Both 100- and 300-level students identified faculty support as being key in a course in which they learned the most. In addition, courses in which they did not have a lot of initial knowledge but had high interest and saw strong practical application resulted in their perception of learning the most.
(FWIW I found this overall framework so valuable, I now include it in my anonymous midterm feedback. After asking my typical start-stop-continue questions, I ask students to sort these “rigor” items into categories of “this makes our course harder for me,” “this makes our course easier for me,” or “not sure/it depends.” Not only has this provided more specific and actionable feedback to me, but it also (hopefully) presents a new schema for our students to use to reflect on their classroom experience.)
We can support our students’ work toward those challenging goals
We should hold high standards for the quality of our students’ work. Clear, high standards can also be conveyed with dignity and respect. This is what faculty support can look like, and is a hallmark of a mentor mindset.
(image from B. Lom, ACS summer book club)
Scholars have described the “mentor’s dilemma” – instructors who want to be kind may soften their criticism, but students can read vague praise as a sign that we expect less of them. However:
- Yeager and colleagues gave students a brief note telling students that the instructor held high standards and believed they could reach them. Students who got it were substantially more likely to revise their work. Note that the standard didn’t change, just the brief message that it was attainable.
- It has implications for students’ sense of belonging. A short intervention that helped students see early struggles as normal/temporary improved mental health and GPAs for students from marginalized groups. It wasn’t lowering a bar; it removed a barrier that had nothing to do with learning or cognitive “challenge.”
- Clear expectations and chances to get feedback before the high-stakes moments helps everyone, and often help most the students who arrive with the least insider knowledge. See the TILT framework for more on this.
This entire interview is interesting, but the final portion discusses the Mentor Mindset:
A few things that we can do
Our feedback is emotional – and often feels personal – to students. How might we adjust our feedback so that it maintains students’ motivation and promotes their self-efficacy?
- Give permission to fail, by using low-stakes assessments & providing opportunities to revise/resubmit – this helps students build confidence and reduce their fear of failure
- Balance criticism with praise, even in low-scoring work
- Use non-judgmental, respectful language and acknowledge effort
- Offer specific suggestions for improvement, not just identification of problems
- Help build your students’ feedback literacy by discussing how to use feedback constructively, and what it might (and doesn’t) mean about their learning and their identity
We can also help cultivate students’ growth mindsets:
- We can help students think about their learning. Students don’t often know how to make sense of their learning experiences. Consider talking explicitly with them about what makes courses hard (or easy) or how to make sense of the feedback that you give them – it will be time well spent.
- We can also build metacognitive practices into our classes. It can be valuable to provide students dedicated time to articulate aspects of their learning, from exams to groupwork.
- We can be explicit about our belief that students are capable of succeeding. Canning et al. (2019) found that students in courses taught by faculty who believed ability is fixed showed larger achievement gaps and reported less motivation. Students pick up on how we think about their potential, whatever our syllabi say. If we treat support as a concession, students may hear that we doubt them. If we treat it as part of the challenge, they may hear the opposite.
- Finally, when we hear students cite their “learning style,” we can gently reframe their thinking to allow more nuance and welcome space to their academic journey.
Rigor tells students we think they can do something difficult. Support helps them do it. I’d like to think our best teaching offers both.
“Good teachers care about the subject; great teachers care about their students.” –Adam Grant, PhD
