Because instructors bring different life experiences, identities, and backgrounds with them into the classroom, teaching with authenticity can take many shapes and forms. Below, we provide some foundational practices that promote authentic teaching.

Personalize your Feedback

Pull back the curtain and let your students meet the wizard (you!). When drafting student feedback, use the first-person and describe your experience reading their work rather than simply noting its formal elements. By communicating your personal experience and using it to inform your feedback, you initiate a personal conversation about their work rather than an impersonal evaluation of it. This approach can be time intensive; however, instructors pressed for time or teaching in classes with a large number of students can still personalize the feedback process by calling attention to effective student work in front of the rest of the class or via a video lecture. Such an approach demonstrates that the work students do matters.

When providing feedback, we can use questions to prompt students to develop their own conclusions about different aspects of their work and the steps needed to improve it. For example, instead of directing a student to support a particular claim in their essay with credible research, ask them to reflect on what they could do to increase the credibility of their claim in the eyes of their audience. You might briefly explain why such a reflection is important to effective writing in general, but by asking a question, you put them in a position to create their own knowledge, thereby affording them more agency over their educational process.

Get Comfortable with Vulnerability

Tailor the design of your Canvas course so that it reflects your personality, interests, or background and provides students with insight into who you are outside of the classroom. 

Danny Pimentel, Assistant Professor of Immersive Media Psychology at UO, identifies vulnerability as a foundational piece of his identity as a teacher. "Paraphrasing a quote," he says, "teaching is a daily practice of vulnerability." Practicing vulnerability includes being transparent about who you are, about your cultural identity and giving students access to that." Instructors like Pimentel give students the chance to identify with their backgrounds and interests, thereby helping students to establish meaningful connections to their instructor and the course content.

For instance, consider the meme to the right, taken from English instructor Tina Boscha's Canvas page for her hybrid Composition course. On a page designed to familiarize students with the definition and expectations of a hybrid course, she includes a meme that puns "hybrid." The "punny" sense of humor is in keeping with her personality. "To make connections [with my students] online and forge them while being authentic, I use humor, which is true in whatever I do, online or in person." Ultimately, Boscha's willingness to be vulnerable enough to share her personality makes her and the course content more approachable for her students.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Embrace Student Customization

To promote authenticity in the classroom, consider building a class in which students can customize different aspects of their learning experience and exercise some agency.

Opportunities for customization can range in size and importance. Such an opportunity might involve asking each student to choose an avatar, gif, or meme for their Canvas profile, giving students the option to use multiple modalities when sharing feedback to their peers, or it could involve planning an activity in which students collaborate in the design of a rubric for a major assignment. At the 2023 UO Online Winter Workshop, Dr. Krystale Littlejohn explained how she builds a "deviance day" into her Introduction to Sociology course. For this assignment, students "participate in a non-harmful form of deviance" and write about what their experience of deviance taught them about the power of social norms.

 

 

Promote Student Self-Exploration

 

For many instructors, few things are more satisfying than witnessing the "lightbulb moment," that authentic moment of inspiration when students become visibly enthralled in their learning. Oftentimes, the lightbulb moment emerges when students realize a personal connection to the course content, so how can we as instructors help students develop these kinds of meaningful learning experiences? One approach involves treating student self-exploration as a foundation for authentic learning. 

When preparing students to conduct and film interviews, UO Professor Gabriella Martinez asks them to reflect how they would feel as the interviewee. In her course, she says, "students have to talk to others, learn to observe people, learn to conduct interviews and hold equipment in front of people's faces who are giving us their life stories and knowledge. Students have to go through this process of self-exploring, which she initiates by asking them,"how would you like to be treated if others were putting all these lights/equipment in front of you?" For Martinez, "making students aware that they have to walk in the shoes of the other is a practice of authenticity," not only within the framework of her class, "but in navigating life." By asking students to identify with the other, Martinez makes the course content personal and relevant to life outside the classroom.

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Much of the language we use to talk about authenticity in the classroom prioritizes the creation of a personable bond between instructor and student. However, creating that bond requires labor and time, two resources that are especially scarce for instructors of large-enrollment courses. In the face of those scarcities, how can we include authenticity as a feature of large-enrollment courses?

Be Transparent about your Labor

In large-enrollment courses, evaluating student work and providing individualized feedback takes time that many instructors do not have. It's one thing to provide students feedback in a class of twenty; it's another thing to provide students feedback in a class of 400. In order to set reasonable student expectations, be transparent about the labor required to evaluate and assess student work. For instance, when outlining how you will assess a given assignment, consider explaining to students that the size of the class means that it is not feasible for you to provide detailed feedback for every assignment or activity; approach this conversation as an opportunity to encourage students to visit you during office hours for additional, more focused help. Being transparent about your labor - and its limits - is an act of authenticity; by pulling back the curtain and revealing your experience as an instructor, you give students the chance to understand you better, thereby creating the potential for a more authentic and personally engaged relationship to form.

Let Student Work do the Teaching

Because instructors often lack the time needed to provide individualized feedback for all assignments and activities, students might assume that the work they're being asked to do holds little value. In other words, the absence of substantive feedback often manifests as an absence of validation, leaving students feeling as if they are doing nothing more than "busy work." Instead of responding in detail to individual assignments (an unfeasible task for large classes), select 3-5 standout examples that effectively illustrate a key concept or inspire an important question. Consider featuring these examples in your next video lecture or in the instructions for a future assignment, thereby validating good student work. Look for creative ways to incorporate student work into your teaching; highlight their submitted ideas and questions when you communicate with the class on Canvas. You can even ask students to reflect on the work of their peers - such as a particularly insightful question - as they complete course activities and assignments.

Self-Identification & Empowerment

When you allow your authentic self to guide your teaching, you demonstrate that students can do the same with their learning. You give them permission to imagine their personal experiences, identities, or cultural backgrounds as a meaningful part of their learning experience rather than something they need to check at the door.

Build a Community of Engagement

Many students are afraid to engage in class openly because they fear being judged for making a mistake. In this kind of a learning environment, vulnerability is a liability that must be kept hidden. However, an instructor who teaches with authenticity normalizes vulnerability and creates a learning environment in which students can feel more secure in taking creative risks.

Bridging the Personal and Professional

Teaching with authenticity embraces the connections joining our personal and professional lives, potentially making the act of teaching more rewarding for us as instructors. In doing so, we also invite students to identify how their personal interests and backgrounds can animate (and energize) the pursuit of their educational goals.