At a college meeting I once attended, one of the department chairs accused the dean of not being transparent enough in the way she made decisions. The dean answered that it wasn’t that simple. Confidential matters were sometimes involved. She couldn’t violate the trust of people who had shared certain information with her. She needed to be discreet about personnel issues, and so on. There was a pause, and then the chair asked, “Well, if you can’t be transparent, can you at least be a little more translucent?”
Fourth, no matter how well intentioned and no matter how much material is covered, student learning will be severely limited by lack of retention. Retention in learning must be built into syllabus construction and course delivery from the first day of class. A useful guide to have all new faculty read is L. Dee Fink’s Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses (2003). Courses that generate both significant and sustainable learning involve challenging students; using active forms of learning; having teachers who truly care about their subject, students, and teaching and learning; having teachers who interact positively with their students; and creating a good system of feedback, assessment, and grading.
