The Transparency in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education project (TILT Higher Ed) is an award-winning national educational development and research project that helps faculty to implement a transparent teaching framework that promotes college students' success. The Project's activities include:
- workshops for both faculty and students that promote student's conscious understanding of how they learn
- online surveys that help faculty to gather, share and promptly benefit from current data about students' learning by coordinating their efforts across disciplines, institutions and countries
- confidential reporting of survey results to faculty
- collaborative research on students' learning experiences
Since its inception at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2009-2010, the project has involved over twenty-five thousand students in hundreds of courses at higher education institutions in seven countries. In 2014-2015, the Transparency Project began partnering with the Association of American Colleges and Universities to focus on advancing underserved students' success in higher education.
The project invites participants from all institutions of higher education in the US and abroad. The voluntary nature of the project allows any instructor to join at any time by signing up online. Instructors' identities and information remain confidential, while students' identities are anonymous.
- Instructors invite their students to complete a 7-10-minute online survey about their learning experiences. The survey data complements traditional student ratings of instruction by providing a measure of how students view their learning experiences and learning strengths.
- An individualized, confidential report [see example] offers real-time insights to each instructor about how to improve students' learning, based on analysis of the data gathered from their own students and other, similar students in comparable courses.
- Optional workshops offer guidance for participating instructors on how to implement small teaching changes that will enhance their students' learning, depending on the level and discipline of the course.