Have you ever done a "hidden curriculum" session with undergrads? (That is, explaining all the things colleges assume you know but are not obvious to many people.) What did they find most helpful?
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I do a language scavenger hunt assignment where I provide a list of terms previous students have noted as being particularly confusing (“transdisciplinary connections”) and give them clues to library or online resources where they can find the answers. Students always give me positive feedback.
I think the failure of the system to instill basic skills like this is one of the reasons so many people now see little value to education. I blame grade inflation, a customer service mentality, and allowing early specialization.
Having taught lots of first-year courses, I always find they appreciate the explanation of how advising and registration works. (Including how their degree audit functions.)
On my list: the purpose of lectures relative to seminars (this turned out to be an issue last year), how to address instructors, how to write an email to a Grown Up, the purpose and method of reading for class, expectations of class attendance, perhaps notetaking...
Someone else suggested "how to use the library," which I'll echo. I wish I had that as an undergrad. Also where to go for writing help (grammar, structure, etc.). And emphasis on the fact that it's okay to need and ask for help—they're there to learn, it's okay to not know things.
This sounds like it would be extremely helpful for a wide audience. Would you consider recording this as a video that could be shared? I bet it would receive a great deal of attention and be enormously useful.
for real- when went back for another bachelor’s there was a required 6-week class about using the library, but we had the option to test out of it, which I did (bc I knew the basics of finding/vetting/using academic sources from BA #1), and in doing so did not ever learn a thing about *that* library
I needed this in grad school more than as an undergrad, as it turned out, but I do remember getting my ass handed to me when I turned in my first essay and needing to go back to my high school 5-paragraph-essay notes.
In a third year course:
-writing topics sentences (built into multiple assignments)
-finding the thesis in a research paper (& going over how to read one, which I don’t think everyone is doing? Third year seems a good time to do it)
-teaching them to use Zotero (why is it not done in orientation?!)
Also, when going over syllabus, I cite the research behind my pedagogical choices. Many express surprise there is research about these things. They take it seriously, and there are fewer phones out during lecture.
I also have a lecture in one of my course on how to use the class to add to their resumes and cover letters, and give them common interview questions that they can answer using their course experience (it’s a 3rd year research course with ethics permissions)
How to evaluate what the criteria/rubric for assignments is asking for would be a good one. And maybe more for grad students in reading-heavy courses, how to effectively skim and decide what and when to deep read (some profs love to assign 50 optional readings per week, students’ choice).
My grad program had a specific kind of paper that almost every single class assigned but which no one had a clear example of or rubric for. It eventually became obvious that every prof meant something slightly different but thought they were using a universal standard.
My program had the opposite problem: many of the classes had assignments that were very detailed and particular technical formats (eg a metadata profile) where the prof expected a specific type of thing that wasn’t a standard essay but assumed all the students knew exactly what they meant
About 85% of my whole job is teaching “How to Grad School, the Reading and Writing Experience (TM)” to incoming students in my campus’s social science departments.
- "Office Hours are for you to talk with your professor. If you come prepared with curiosity about the subject, you might make your prof's week!"
- "What you do here involves curiosity & evidence. You're learning for life! After you graduate, here's how to access evidence via JSTOR, G Schol, etc."
The distinction of office hours as an opportunity to engage and learn more VS. needing help/not understanding would have been huge for me in grad school.
It's a small subset of students at the community college who were delighted to learn about using JSTOR's no-cost "personal account" even after they graduated—but OMG were those students thrilled!
A hidden course for just-about-to-graduate students would def include all the ways to still get access to academic databases. I ended up making a list for myself of all the free (ie no institutional login) databases I could find
I also threw in how to search the Internet and used book stores for the ISBN of the class texts, why I'd chosen those editions, and how we'd be using them in class.
That’s a good one! I didn’t understand about editions my first semester of college, so I just bought the cheapest versions I could find. Of course I was lost all semester. 😬
We have 1 credit class for this w first years: emails, Dr/Prof, how to use library and databases, scholarly info, diffs bt majors/minors/certs, how to ride the bus, how to apply for funding, managing time, how to study for finals, internships, how to take notes, office hours, how to declare
When I took my MLIS they had all the incoming grad students take a pre-semester “grad school orientation” course that had stuff like how to use a citation manager and properly cite literature, and that made a very noticeable difference among the students who did and didn’t take the course
even as someone whose parents went to college and who grew up with the expectation that I would go too, that pressure to “get” college from day one dissuaded me from office hours because surely that’s not for me, someone whose parents went to college *checks notes* 25+ years ago
I'm sure this is somethign you discuss already or your students may be more aware of than mine, but I go thru where our readings come from, everything from how people on campus do taxpayer-funded research (or, did), to journals, peer review, library subscriptions, covering both trust/expertise & $$
that is maybe not quite hidden curriculum but talking about it does reveal students who do know this versus others who've not thought about it at all. I also address how instructing students is not instructors' only job and the university relies on casualized labor
Great thread!! Found it very interesting as I just completed my first year in the classroom teaching Professional Devt to mostly soph econ students at Northeastern University. After 30 yrs in industry & then teaching, there’s so much that needs to be “translated” to students about professionalism.
Why many faculty don't have their own dedicated classrooms and how to find faculty offices, what faculty do besides teach classes, that faculty don't all live close to campus and aren't available 24/7, practicing how to approach different people for help, etc.
As a librarian I'm often trying to say aloud the assumptions behind assignments (why this many sources of these types). The best response I've gotten was from a session showing students how to use a set of bibliographies to figure out who the experts are on a topic.
I wrote a whole book about it! An entire chapter on writing emails (using only real emails I have received), explaining faculty status, how to interpret a syllabus, what to ACTUALLY say in office hours, how to deal with gatekeeping in extracurriculars, and more. https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Professors-Office-Insiders-Thriving/dp/B0D2QJQ6Z7
One of our engineering professors dedicates a class at the start of the year called, "who can help". She invites student services, the library, counseling center, and the campus help center to give quick intros of what they do.
I've done this with high school students, actually, in reverse: I have asked them what they think the hidden curriculum in their educations is, and what they think is actually important, apart from what their teachers and parents tell them to value. It was enlightening.
I use specific frameworks (4E cognition, Developmental Psychology) as windows into what is embedded in a course (which is far more than it's stated content), value systems, cultural assumptions, the cultivation of characteristics and capacities that engagement in the class is designed for.
I once did an assignment in a first-year writing course where students had to write a guide (for fellow undergrads) to USC's hidden rules/curriculum/culture. Lots of focus on how to handle the pressure to Be Amazing and Productive constantly.
My seniors said the same thing when I polled them about this! A lot of them also talked about UCLA's bizarre extracurricular club thing, where you need to interview to get into clubs. (I do not understand.)
Yes during orientation – big ones are who to go to for X (advisors, accessibility office, etc), how to find important info on university websites, how to interact w/ faculty + TAs (email, office hours etc) and different expectations vs high school (eg responsible for due dates w/o reminders)
We do panels that include faculty, support staff + current students, and have the new students submit their questions anonymously on slips of paper (and everyone has to turn in a slip) so they aren't embarrassed to ask a "dumb" question, that breaks the ice and then open it up to live questions.
I've done a class explaining
- what different academic ranks (Assistant professor, lecturer, etc.) mean
- what tenure means
- why tenure is about academic freedom
- what to call professors in emails (when are they "prof"? when "Dr."? when "Mr./Ms."?)
Students are really interested in that.
thank you for this thread. i also always do a hidden curriculum lecture at the end of term, no matter the year or level, about reference letters and how references work to filter out 'newcomers' to any power structure. most of my students are 1st gen & it's a really welcome eye opener, apparently.
Even introducing them to the *idea* of a hidden curriculum that some of their peers already inhabit can be profoundly liberating for them. Have done more with grads but have often done in conjunction with texts explicit about the bases of inequality...
We talk about email as a genre and do a bad email exercise I got from @bethanyqualls.bsky.social. At the end of it, I refer to some seemingly innocuous phrases professors don't like to receive.
A big one that I reiterate a lot is that there are times when their goals for themselves may diverge from my goals for them as their instructor and that it's worth examining what will best serve them by looking at their larger goals.
I've started including examples of what we could talk about in office hours in my syllabus so that they'll understand better what they're for. (This is based on when I was a TA and students would tell me they'd come to my office hour because they were afraid to bother the professor.)
In support courses for my 1st semester writing classes at my community college, I take students on my own, specialized tour of campus—resources, soft spaces, instructor offices, identity support groups, how to find friends. They are often amazed to find out our campus has so much to offer them.
1sr gen students often need to be shown where all the secret locks to the secret doors are. And they are especially grateful to have honest talks about real life on campus.
I have a day of this with my Comp 1 students that I call "How to College." There's a lot of talk about unspoken expectations of college, tips for being more professional, what to do to succeed (take notes, go to office hours + what those are for, etc.), plus significant time going over...
...what services the college offers (Writing Center, access to therapy, accessibility, etc.). My students are almost all first gen and English language learners, and many got their prior education in another country, and they tell me it's helpful & nobody else is telling them this stuff.
I've only minimally done this on any specific content. I've spent more time on explaining the concept of hidden curriculum - that it's okay to no know stuff, that some people knowing stuff and others not is not any individuals' fault and is a form of inequality. I talk about some of my experience w/
that stuff being 1st gen and having some profs being jerks about it. I find some of the first gen students respond in a big way to it and start talking to me more informally just about college being hard etc. I get the sense they also like the validation that some profs are jerks and shouldn't be.
Yes! Someone on the thread posted an article reporting on studies that have demonstrated durable academic benefits for students who are just told about the *existence* of the hidden curriculum.
We get into part of this with the #DHRPG class: what is a department chair's job actually? What motivates librarians to get involved with digital projects? What does meaningful credit look like for an undergrad, grad student, librarian, pre-tenure faculty member?
Comments
-writing topics sentences (built into multiple assignments)
-finding the thesis in a research paper (& going over how to read one, which I don’t think everyone is doing? Third year seems a good time to do it)
-teaching them to use Zotero (why is it not done in orientation?!)
- "What you do here involves curiosity & evidence. You're learning for life! After you graduate, here's how to access evidence via JSTOR, G Schol, etc."
https://www.chronicle.com/article/we-must-help-first-generation-students-master-academes-hidden-curriculum/n
Also, Anthony Abraham Jack
- what different academic ranks (Assistant professor, lecturer, etc.) mean
- what tenure means
- why tenure is about academic freedom
- what to call professors in emails (when are they "prof"? when "Dr."? when "Mr./Ms."?)
Students are really interested in that.
We talk about email as a genre and do a bad email exercise I got from @bethanyqualls.bsky.social. At the end of it, I refer to some seemingly innocuous phrases professors don't like to receive.
I talk to them about what grades mean in undergrad versus grad school and what they mean when you graduate.