Q2 I’m a learning designer, so my job is to know as much about student’s skills, values, motivations. Online learning to function takes some targeted approaches. You learn a lot about talking to students, researching experience and understanding why learning design fails about the HC #lthechat
A2: Unpacking the choices we have made in the curriculum and why we have made them. A lot of these chosen may have been unconscious, and are wrapped up in our values and identify. Re-thinking this makes it explicit (and helps identify bias) #LTHEchat
Q2 #LTHE indeed. Perhaps aspects of hidden curriculum are identified when the rules are violated, or 'mistakes' are made? Hence another reason to celebrate mistakes?
A2 I'd say self-reflection and being alive to your own use of language - thinking not only about tricky terminology and where this is/isn't communicated to students currently but also any expectations inadvertently reinforced through phrasing etc. And keep speaking to students! #LTHEchat
A2 Double checking with diverse students that curriculum design gave them part of curriculum design. Also regular conversations with students. Learn from them! #LTHEchat
A1 Unwritten rules and codes, ways of being and doing education including phrases and literature that is valued beyond other literature. It’s about power and status. #LTHEChat
I think one of the values of examining the hidden curriculum and reflecting on it is the fact that we then start to look more closely at these rules and codes - how did this literature type gain value? How does it privilege? Who doesn't get heard? etc.
A2. Try to look at it from a different perspective - as if it's the first time I've come across it.
Work with students as partners.
I've loaded up a couple of student personas into Gen AI and 'consult' with them on various things, esp. accessibility, clarity etc.
#LTHEchat
A2 by first accepting that it's hard for me to see. I come from an academic family, which invisibilises so much. I think I tend to use the characteristics of students I have known, and ask myself, 'would X know what to do if I gave this instruction' #LTHEchat
A2. Talk to student. Ask staff what they get questions about. Ask support systems such as IT what they get queries about. Stop assuming that what seems obvious in descriptions is obvious in any interaction or process with students. Ensure this research is repeated regularly #LTHEchat
A2 #LTHE chat - for me thinking whether something is 'industry-specific' can be a helpful framing. Also, thinking beyond knowledge, but also to attitudes, values, priorities. Reflecting on own experience: is this something I learned? If so, how, and in what context.
Interact with colleagues internationally. Look at alternative schools and school systems. Regularly ask myself why I do what I do and not something different. Try to think of what may be positive in how others approach things. Read ‘Dumbing us down’ by John Taylor Gatto
Talking to students is great - this can help us to know what students do not understand. But some of the hidden curriculum will be unseen to students. It might not always be obvious to students that something is hidden to them #LTHEchat
M/c, matching, gapfill... I've done a couple using Wooclap polling software for new UG international students (anonymous, as @abbis.bsky.social mentioned) #LTHEChat
A2 #LTHEchat ID through social calibration / moderation?
“we are teaching far more than we know. Every word we speak, every action we perform, every time we choose not to speak or act, every smile, every curse, every sigh, is a lesson in the hidden curriculum”
To be completely honest, I haven’t really thought about it until reading the blog. Having read that and explored the resources I am going to be going out and about speaking to students about the hidden curriculum elements that they experienced and building this into transition support #LTHEchat
In a business strategy class talking about Apple and Google products, suddenly we started talking on ethical consumerism (few years ago there was an issue with Apple products). This was a topic not expected but students were very engaged. I had to move back to the topic about strategy #LTHEchat
A2. As a post grad returning from the world of work to study a masters there were a lot assumptions made about what I knew and had heard of so anything that demystifies that would have helped #LTHEchat
I felt exactly the same way when I was in the same position as you. It was the first time I hadn’t felt I belonged or believed I would succeed in academia and it felt awful!
A2 if the hidden curriculum has been identified is it still hidden? Perhaps the question is more how do we ensure we teach the key skills needed so that students don’t have to discover them for themselves…in which case…ask the students! #LTHEchat
I think we have to reidentify it every year. Different students, changing contexts. EG there's lots of hidden curriculum around use of genAI... #LTHEchat
A2 thinking critically, focusing on what knowledge has become invisible or non-knowledge. Diversifying and decolonizing. Clarifying and openly naming overrepresentation, privilege, advantage and innocence. Asking students what the empty boxes are and what should be there #LTHEchat
Comments
Educators can help with this #LTHEchat
https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/members/unpacking-your-hidden-curriculum-guide-for-educators.pdf?sfvrsn=51d7a581_8
#LTHEchat
Work with students as partners.
I've loaded up a couple of student personas into Gen AI and 'consult' with them on various things, esp. accessibility, clarity etc.
#LTHEchat
https://www.qaa.ac.uk/news-events/news/new-resources-for-supporting-successful-student-transitions
“we are teaching far more than we know. Every word we speak, every action we perform, every time we choose not to speak or act, every smile, every curse, every sigh, is a lesson in the hidden curriculum”
Unveiling the Hidden Curriculum - Wade Gofton and Glenn Regehr
https://www.aoassn.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/whatwedon_tknowweareteaching.pdf