Transparent Design and Assessment
Javier Cavazos Vela · 2025
When instructors use transparent design, clinical mental health counseling students understand the purpose of their assignment, how their assignment connects to learning goals and workplace skills, and how their work will be evaluated. Transparent design involves three components: purpose, task, and criteria for success. By providing transparent criteria for success, instructors show students what the end result can look like as well as help them improve their work and effort to move toward that outcome. When done with intentionality and purpose, transparent instruction can help students become familiar with our expectations for success as well as strategies for monitoring their progress toward success. We can use transparent design to identify the purpose of our major assessment activities, link assessment activities to course outcomes, and provide students with a rubric with performance criteria.