Small changes: attend to students’ goals and reinforce material

We know that training motivation is a critical part of the picture, and we know that our students have wildly varying motivations for taking our classes. One approach to looking at training motivation is goal orientation theory (e.g., DeShon & Gillespie, Reference DeShon and Gillispie2005; Vandewalle etal., Reference Vandewalle, Nerstad and Dysvik2019). Some students will hold mastery achievement goals, which means they are likely to come to class already geared up to bounce back from mistakes and motivated to acquire knowledge. You can support the adoption of mastery goals by encouraging students to set goals focused on their own learning and behavior (rather than on their performance relative to other students). The benefits of mastery goals include better learning goals and task-specific self-efficacy (e.g., Kozlowski etal., Reference Kozlowski, Gully, Brown, Salas, Smith and Nason2001).

Those with a strong performance orientation (i.e., those motivated to get a good grade), though, may be somewhat easily derailed by a poor grade in an early assignment. To support those students, small changes you can make are to ensure that the grading standards are clear in the syllabus, that there are relatively easy assignments to begin the class, to create a sense of momentum, and that there are opportunities to compensate for a poor grade in any one assignment, quiz, or test. A good resource for creating a strong syllabus is included in Table 1, footnote 1, but your university/college’s teaching support center is likely to have excellent resources as well.

Table 1. Self-Needs-Assessment Questions and Recommended Changes (additional resources in footnotes)

¹ Tips for creating a good syllabus: https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/advice-syllabus

² General tips for learning student names: https://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/current/teaching/names https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/solveproblem/strat-cheating/tips-studentnames.html

³ iOS app for learning names: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/attendance2/id536206472 Android app for learning names: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chalk.attendance

⁴ Online software for schedule sign-up: https://www.picktime.com/ or https://calendly.com/

⁵ Tips for creating an inclusive classroom: https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190719_inclusive_teaching

⁶ Diversity classroom exercises: (I-O focused) http://siopwiki.wikifoundry.com/page/Diversity+Scenarios (general) https://secure.understandingprejudice.org/teach/highact.htm

⁷ Learning about diversity and being an ally: https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2018/how-to-be-an-ally https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/leadership http://citizenshipandsocialjustice.com/2015/07/10/curriculum-for-white-americans-to-educate-themselves-on-race-and-racism

⁸ Collaborative team testing resources: Vázquez-García (Reference Vázquez-García2018). https://www.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/advan.00113.2017 Vogler & Robinson (Reference Vogler and Robinson2016). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel_Robinson7/publication/304347304_Team-based_testing_improves_individual_learning/links/576c433a08aedb18f3eb271b.pdf

⁹ Team charter example: Aaron etal. (Reference Aaron, McDowell and Herdman2014). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joshua_Aaron/publication/265965310_The_Effects_of_a_Team_Charter_on_Student_Team_Behaviors/links/56d5fa2008aee73df6c0568d.pdf

¹⁰ Behaviorally anchored rating scale for self- and peer-evaluations in team work: Ohland etal. (Reference Ohland, Loughry, Woehr, Bullard, Felder, Finelli, Layton, Pomeranz and Schmucker2012). https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bcde/763f7390942da8eb041f061dc71ea7f2186e.pdf?_ga=2.196854892.1921486513.1576636816-400405067.1576636816

¹¹ Team project website: https://x-culture.org/ Guidance on creating good team projects: https://learninginnovation.duke.edu/blog/2016/10/ideas-great-group-work/

¹² Flipped classroom primer: Hussey etal. (Reference Hussey, Richmond and Fleck2015). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1475725715592830

¹³ Teaching teamwork skills: Goltz etal. (Reference Goltz, Hietapelto, Reinsch and Tyrell2008). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sonia_Goltz/publication/228884587_Teaching_Teamwork_and_Problem_Solving_Concurrently/links/554cd6c60cf29f836c9b7820.pdf

¹⁴ Developing rubrics: Chowdhury (Reference Chowdhury2019). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1201525.pdf

After you’ve considered the different ways in which your students are motivated, how can you ensure that your students won’t forget what you’ve worked so hard to cover? Design your class to support retention of the material presented. Psychological research indicates that it’s important to pay attention to the spacing of the material presented (Pashler etal., Reference Pashler, Rohrer, Cepeda and Carpenter2007). It is hard to retain information that is only presented once, so you will want to repeat the most critical concepts throughout the semester. Further, it is important to think of testing as an opportunity for knowledge acquisition as well as knowledge assessment (Roediger & Karpicke, Reference Roediger and Karpicke2006). Combine these two concepts to arrive at our final small change suggestion: recycle a few questions from previous exams into future exams to reinforce long-term retention of the material and tell students explicitly that you will do this.

Medium changes: connect material within topics and to students’ work lives

Continuing with the topic of spacing the material presented, you can go beyond recycling test questions to reinforce important topics. A medium change that you could make is to review your course content to see where previous topics are likely to be related to newer topics. For example, a discussion of the assessment of individual differences is often included in the context of selection, but it is also related to training needs assessment. Plan to make the connection between these two applications of assessment of individual differences to introduce spacing (planned repetition) of your material through the term.

A good needs assessment can give you information about what your students already know. A key tenet of Knowles’ adult learning theory (Knowles etal., Reference Knowles, Holton and Swanson2015) is that it is helpful to acknowledge the experiences of your students in your teaching. Therefore, a medium change we can suggest is to determine how much (and what type of) work experience your students typically have. If your students have little job experience, consider bringing in workers to share their experiences relevant to the topics covered (or share video or podcast clips from workers). Alternatively, you can make connections to the types of work they have done, whether as part-time contributors, volunteers, or student leaders in high school. If your students typically have quite a bit of job experience, then ask them to connect class content with their own experiences in discussions and/or assignments. Another key tenet is that your students are more motivated to learn when they can see the relevance of the knowledge to be gained. Related to this, you can also explain how course content might be useful to students in the near future. If you’re not sure how they might use what they learned, ask some former students to share what they remember/applied—the results will likely delight you.

Large changes: develop course goals and overarching themes

A very important question to tackle in a needs assessment is, What do you want your students to learn, taking into account what students already know and what they want to know? To be clear, we don’t mean just the act of writing learning objectives that conform to the approved methods (for example, see Bloom’s taxonomy; Krathwohl, Reference Krathwohl2002)—we also mean defining what success looks like for you and your students (see Wiggins & McTighe, Reference Wiggins and McTighe1998, for one approach to this process). From there, you can create and communicate strong, concise learning objectives that will guide every choice you make as an instructor so you can be sure that students learn what you want them to learn (Noe, Reference Noe2017). Also, when you identify exactly what you want the students to get out of the class, this can help you avoid packing too much material into one term, which is a common pitfall.

A critical next step is to examine the content taught, the activities assigned, and any assessment planned to determine whether they align with the learning objectives (Stewart & Brown, Reference Stewart and Brown2015). Anything that does not align should be discarded. Additionally, materials, activities, and assessments should be added to ensure that students have repeated opportunities to practice in some fashion, receive feedback, and demonstrate that they paid attention to the feedback and improved. We know from the training literature that the opportunity to practice new skills is essential to making the learning transfer to the workplace (Salas etal., Reference Salas, Tannenbaum, Kraiger and Smith-Jentsch2012), so give them opportunities to practice what they are learning. To do this, you can create assignments or a large, term project that provides opportunities to put new concepts and skills into practice. You could even have small groups of students engage in service learning projects for departments on campus or small organizations to apply what they are learning in class. Doing this effectively will take both up-front work and a mindset (from you!) of experimentation and iteration, but the payoff in terms of both engagement and retention of knowledge is likely to be quite large.

Taking this concept one step further, you could rearrange the course content around some large questions that are strongly centered around learning objectives that will allow you to cover all the intended content. For example, you could cover core chapters in an introductory I-O psychology class centered around the following five questions (with related topics/chapters in parentheses):

1. 1. How do you hire the right people for a job? (individual differences, job analysis, selection, and legal issues)

2. 2. Once they are hired, how do you train them to do the job well? (training and development)

3. 3. How do we know whether they are doing the job well and how to use that information to improve their performance over time? (performance management)

4. 4. How do we ensure that our best employees stay? (motivation, leadership, job attitudes, organizational culture/climate, diversity, occupational health)

5. 5. How do I-O psychologists know all this stuff? (history of I-O psychology, research methods)

Grounding a class in terms of a small number of relevant questions should help students see how the course content is useful as well as organize and retain the knowledge they gained.

Small changes: get to know the students and yourself

Getting to know the students is one easy way that professors can enhance their understanding of and appreciation for diversity in the classroom (e.g., Lantos, Reference Lantos1997). To do this, you might ask your students to complete an assignment of writing a two- to three-page autobiography. To make it I-O relevant, they might include descriptions of jobs they have held, or they might write about five jobs they might like to have (either of which can be talking points for later class discussions).

Another way to get to know your students is to work toward identifying your students by name. This can be very difficult in large classes, but for medium to small classes, there are several methods to connect faces and names (see Table 1, footnotes 2 & 3). On the technology side, you can ask students to upload pictures of themselves on your learning management system platform (e.g., Canvas, Blackboard). You could also use an app to match photos with names in a roster (search for “attendance” in your app store). The low-tech version is to give students “name tents” (a large index card folded with their names on them) to set on their desks or have students affix a photograph to a large index card describing themselves that you can keep and review.

A seemingly more involved—but really not that time consuming—idea is to regularly invite different groups of students to lunch or coffee to discuss I-O psychology. Your learning management system might have a mechanism for assigning students to groups for invitations, and there are also online scheduling software solutions where students could sign up for available meeting times (see Table 1, footnote 4). Meeting with your students will typically reveal the range of diversity in students that is not simply visible from the front of the class alone. Additionally, such meetings signal to students—all students—that you care about them and have an interest in knowing who they are. Consonant with the I-O literature, feeling included is critical for individuals to thrive (Ferdman, Reference Ferdman, Ferdman and Deane2013).

In addition to getting to know the students, it is critical for you to understand how you, yourself, operate in ways that may be biased toward others, especially nonmajority members. Research shows that teachers’ expectations about students have dramatic consequences on students’ performance (Rosenthal & Jacobson, Reference Rosenthal and Jacobson1968). Research has found that stereotype threat, which refers to the situational predicament of confirming a stereotype about one’s group status, can affect the classroom (Dennehy etal., Reference Dennehy, Smith, Moore, Dasgupta and Feldman2018). Furthermore, negative expectations about certain groups of students can trigger stereotype threat, leading to poor performance among those students (Dennehy etal., Reference Dennehy, Smith, Moore, Dasgupta and Feldman2018; Steele & Aronson, Reference Steele and Aronson1995). Pervasively negative teacher expectations of student performance is particularly problematic for racial and income minorities (Agirdag etal., Reference Agirdag, Van Avermaet and Van Houtte2013). Therefore, it is important to be aware of stereotype threat and the influence that our expectations might have on student performance.

If you strive to become more aware of your expectations (for example, do you low-key expect the stereotypical “frat boy” to do poorly in your class?), you can become more aware of the effect that they can have on your students. If your university/college has a center that supports teaching, they are likely to have resources for helping you become more aware of your biases and for helping you create an inclusive classroom (see also Table 1, footnote 5). These efforts will minimize the likelihood that your expectations aren’t inadvertently causing your students to perform poorly—especially underrepresented or disadvantaged students.

Medium changes: assign group projects and perspective taking

Many instructors assign group projects as part of their classes, and this is another area in which instructors can incorporate research on diversity. Given that diversity can have a positive effect on teams (Wei etal., Reference Wei, Liu and Chen2015), you might deliberately create groups to ensure there is diversity within them. The experiences that students have in these classroom groups can be the learning labs for a great number of I-O psychology concepts, in addition to learning how to work with diverse group members. Although interpersonal conflicts can emerge in teams, particularly when people hold different viewpoints and values (Hentschel etal., Reference Hentschel, Shemla, Wegge and Kearney2013), students can learn about the ways to minimize such conflict. For instance, research on the jigsaw classroom (Williams, Reference Williams2004) suggests that giving group members a superordinate goal can increase group harmony simply through the act of working together. The content of the group project can be anything, such as having the team act as consultants and examine a case study. This accomplishes two goals: The students learn about I-O psychology, and they learn how to work better with others who are different from them.

Another strategy that might be used in the classroom to promote empathy and cohesion among different people is perspective taking (see Longmire & Harrison, Reference Longmire and Harrison2018). For instance, you could create an assignment that asks students to take the perspective of a minority student/employee in an effort to cultivate current and future tolerance. There are many ways that an assignment such as this could be implemented. On a basic level, a prompt can be given to the students (e.g., “imagine you are an employee in this situation”) and ask them to imagine they are a minority with whom they do not personally identify. However, there are many variations of this. For instance, this could be done as a paper (e.g., “How would you respond to an organization’s culture of toxic masculinity if you were a woman?”) or as an experiential activity (e.g., “Interview an individual who belongs to an employee network group [i.e., LGBTQI+]”). Also, an activity such as this could be incorporated into multiple classes besides just classes on diversity. For instance, in a leadership class, you can ask students to take on the perspective of a minority leader. Additional examples are included in Table 1, footnote 6.

Large changes: gain more diversity-related expertise

One of the biggest things you can do to incorporate diversity into your classes is to become a diversity expert yourself. This might involve reading diversity-related literature on inclusion and authenticity, gaining first-hand knowledge with many diverse perspectives, and/or engaging in culturally responsive teaching. Chisholm (Reference Chisholm1994) suggested that multicultural preparation is imperative for educators; to best serve one’s students, one must do the hard work of gaining a deep understanding of the experiences of diverse people instead of a superficial understanding of general diversity-related issues. This requires not only time and energy but also facing and overcoming one’s biases and ignorance.

Essentially, we are suggesting that instructors become authentic allies to diverse people. To do this successfully, Russell and Bohan (Reference Russell and Bohan2016) suggest that one must go through a foundational change in the way he or she views issues of diversity, inclusion, power, and representation. They argue that anything less is not sufficient to be a true resource for minority people (see also Grzanka etal., Reference Grzanka, Adler and Blazer2015). In becoming a better ally, you can seek to maximally understand, educate, and promote students. How do you become an ally? Many have argued that it is more than simply identifying as such; it is a longer developmental journey (Collins & Chlup, Reference Collins and Chlup2014; Sue, Reference Sue2017). Bishop (Reference Bishop2002) suggested that it is a multistage process that you must go through to become a true ally, which includes learning about and understanding oppression, understanding how you might already be benefitting from oppression against others (and any negative emotions associated with this), and then determine how you can use your privilege to help others. We have included a few resources for learning about allyship in Table 1, footnote 7. This can be a time-intensive (and at times uncomfortable) experience for people, but the potential payoff in the classroom can be immense. Also, professors might encourage their I-O students to also become diversity experts and allies in similar ways.

Small changes: use teams during classes

First of all, I-O research shows us that teams can result in many positive outcomes (see Kozlowski & Bell, Reference Kozlowski, Bell, Schmitt, Highhouse and Weiner2013, for a review), so incorporating teamwork during your classes is a good first step. Teams can be one tool to help achieve active-learning, in-class activities, which a number of studies show can enhance the depth of processing and memory recall that students have for class information (e.g., Noe, Reference Noe2017). One easy way to get students to engage in active learning, then, is to have them form short-term teams within the class to discuss and apply course content. These teams can be assigned tasks that are simple, such as to answer questions about a reading or topic discussed in your lecture, develop a mini lesson to teach to the rest of the class, or brainstorm solutions to a case study or problem.

Some instructors even use collaborative team testing, where they add a team portion to an exam and allow students to work together to answer questions (see Table 1, footnote 8 for links to these helpful articles: Vázquez-García, Reference Vázquez-García2018; Vogler & Robinson, Reference Vogler and Robinson2016). These two particular studies demonstrated that subsequent recall for retested items was better when students did the same test individually, then in a group, and were given immediate feedback (as opposed to only doing the test individually and being given feedback). A key consideration in what these two studies did to make the team-based testing effective was allowing group discussion of items to allow for deeper processing recall. Specifically, their designs included team members discussing each item and coming to a consensus before determining its answer, getting immediate feedback, and then continuing to discuss the item (if it was incorrect) to get partial credit until they get to the correct answer (check out these two papers for more details on how they operationalized team-based testing).

Medium changes: use team projects outside of classes

Using I-O research on teams, we might also be able to improve the way that we teach I-O psychology by assigning team projects outside of the class. One research-supported practice for improving group effectiveness is the use of team charters (or contracts). As described by Mathieu and Rapp (Reference Mathieu and Rapp2009), charters are agreements created by the team that clarify how team members will work together and hold each other accountable. High-quality charters require team members to (a) articulate objectives; (b) identify stakeholders; (c) note team members’ strengths, weaknesses, and work styles; (d) assign roles and responsibilities; (e) clarify decision-making and work processes; (f) create opportunities for feedback; and (g) determine how performance will be evaluated (Mathieu & Rapp, Reference Mathieu and Rapp2009). For student team projects, students could be given dedicated time to fill out a charter to ensure they are all on the same page, and this charter can be graded to make sure students take it seriously.

Mathieu and Rapp (Reference Mathieu and Rapp2009) found that teams that establish higher quality charters perform better for two reasons. The first is an improvement in team function, which frees up time and attention, so team members better learn the material that is the focus of the learning objective. The related benefit for the instructor is fewer complaints about teamwork in the class. The second benefit is to demonstrate the use of charters as team-related practice that can be used next time the students lead a team. Check out Aaron etal. (Reference Aaron, McDowell and Herdman2014) for empirical evidence of the effectiveness of team charters on student teams as well as an example of an actual team charter you could adapt yourself (see Table 1, footnote 9 for a link to this article). If you don’t like that specific charter, you can search online for “team contract for students” and find a number of examples to explore.

Another suggestion from the literature on teams that can help with outside of class student projects is to assign both individual and group grades to team projects. We know from research that social loafing (i.e., when a team member doesn’t put in a lot of effort because he or she believes the rest of the group will pick up the slack; Latane etal., Reference Latane, Williams and Harkins1979) is a challenge in team settings but can be reduced if individuals feel accountability (Liden etal., Reference Liden, Wayne, Jaworksi and Bennett2004). By assigning a portion of a group project grade to each person’s individual contribution, everyone on the team will feel more accountable and responsible for completing a fair share of the work. Determining these grades can be done by the students themselves; having them peer rate each other can maximize the chance that everyone will feel that their contribution is being noticed. Previous research on student team projects has found individual grades to be effective at reducing social loafing (Dommeyer, Reference Dommeyer2012). Colleagues in our field have already created a behaviorally anchored rating scale for self- and peer evaluations in team work (Ohland etal., Reference Ohland, Loughry, Woehr, Bullard, Felder, Finelli, Layton, Pomeranz and Schmucker2012) that you can use/adapt (see Table 1, footnote 10).

Finally, when a team activity or project would benefit from a brainstorming session, a third suggestion from the literature is to teach students to brainstorm individually first and then brainstorm together as a team. Often, when students are assigned an out-of-class team project, one of the first things they do is get together to brainstorm how to accomplish the task. However, research suggests that their brainstorming would be more effective if they individually brainstormed (perhaps before they meet) and then brought their suggestions together to discuss (McGlynn etal., Reference McGlynn, McGurk, Effland, Johll and Harding2004). This is not immediately obvious to the students but makes sense when you explain it to them. Brainstorming as a team often results in students being hesitant to say bad things about each other’s ideas, so they therefore just go with the first (instead of the best) suggestion.

Large changes: use team projects that last the whole term

Another approach that could promote both experiential learning and teamwork is assigning teams an applied project that lasts the entire term. These projects can be simulations or service learning projects (i.e., projects that benefit the community, which could be your department, university, or local nonprofit organization), and they should be designed to provide practice and application opportunities for the material being covered. As an example, class teams could be charged with creating a change-management effort in a fictional, poorly performing, fast-food chain. Throughout the term, they can work on specific assignments that are designed to get them to relate theories and research in leadership, culture, motivation, and organizational change to create an evidence-based recommendation for their client. Another interesting avenue might be to look into what can be found at x-culture.org (also listed in Table 1, footnote 11), where students around the world collaborate on real-word business problems to gain both experiential learning and intercultural competency. Additional resources for adopting this change in your classroom can be found by searching the term “problem-based learning” (see also a review by Wiggins etal., Reference Wiggins, Chiriac, Abbad, Pauli and Worrell2016).

In some cases, applied projects that last the entire term may call for using a flipped classroom style, where students are expected to cover core material (through reading or videos or both) before coming to class, and they work in their teams in class on the application of the material to achieve project goals. This allows you to provide supervision to their work by walking around and visiting each team, asking for updates and questions. As with many of our suggestions, there are ample resources online, but Hussey etal. (Reference Hussey, Richmond and Fleck2015) have published a helpful primer for psychology courses (link in Table 1, footnote 12).

For teams to be successful working on long-term projects, you should plan to give your students tools to work well together. The aforementioned team charter would be a good place to start, but also encourage students to view the development of teamwork skills as an explicit goal of the project. Plan to require regular teamwork assessments for the students to develop a feedback culture in their team, and teach students how to handle conflict among team members, which will help them move past challenges that are related to surface-level (demographic) diversity and reap the benefits that are associated with deep-level (psychological) diversity (Harrison etal., Reference Harrison, Price, Gavin and Florey2002). If you move the material about groups and teams to the start of your term, you can also cover important topics such as team development processes, team diversity, social loafing/facilitation, and groupthink/group polarization so that they can see these topics in action in their own teams. Combining teamwork skills with problem-solving skills will also set the stage for students to become better future team members and leaders (see Table 1, footnote 13 for a link to Goltz etal., Reference Goltz, Hietapelto, Reinsch and Tyrell2008).

Small changes: establish a shared vision through inspirational motivation

At its core, transformational leadership is about “transforming” followers into better versions of themselves. Inspirational motivation, one of the four components of this style of leadership, refers to communicating a shared vision with your group of a better future. Transformational leaders help their followers see how things could be if everyone worked to improve and grow. If the followers see how things could be for them, they are more willing to do the hard work to get there.

There are many ways this can easily be incorporated into the classroom. First, transformational teachers can establish a shared vision for a course by explaining the “why” behind everything that goes into the course: Why are certain assignments given and why are certain topics included? Relatedly, what are the explicit learning goals of the course; what do you as the instructor intend for the students to achieve by the end of the semester? The answers to these questions can (hopefully) show that there is meaning behind the choices that have gone into the course.

In terms of motivation, this step can prevent a class from becoming simply a series of assignments to check off a to-do list. Understanding the learning objectives and the meaning behind class assignments can motivate students to achieve these higher-level goals. These decisions are intended to transform the students not only into more knowledgeable consumers of the topic but also, more importantly, into better thinkers about the topic. Instructors often mistakenly expect students to understand (or accept) their pedagogical choices, but this rationale may not always be obvious to students who may not know what works and what does not work in classes. Therefore, explicitly pointing this out can help students get on board with the class and want to be “transformed.” We argue that communicating this shared vision may seem like a small step for instructors, but having shared expectations of course goals, especially on the first day of class, can influence student satisfaction, motivation, and performance (Hermann etal., Reference Hermann, Foster and Hardin2010; Wilson & Wilson, Reference Wilson and Wilson2007).

Medium changes: give feedback through individualized consideration

If instructors wish to make more changes to their classes than just communicating a vision, they may consider individualized consideration. This component of transformational leadership refers to providing a supportive climate focused on the individual needs of followers. Given that students come to a class with varying skill levels and preparation, personalized feedback can also be a valuable tool in reducing existing achievement gaps (Slavich & Zimbardo, Reference Slavich and Zimbardo2012). At times, it can be difficult for leaders to attend to all of their followers individually but leader–member exchange theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, Reference Graen and Uhl-Bien1995) has also borne out its importance; transformational leaders do not ignore this valued part of a leader–follower relationship.

Individualized consideration can be incorporated into a classroom in two ways. First, you can give more individualized feedback to students on their assignments. Students benefit from knowing not just how they did (i.e., their letter grade) but also the specific reasons for their grade (i.e., what they did right/wrong and more important how they can improve). Although individualized feedback can be time consuming, the use of grading rubrics can significantly cut down on the amount of time it takes; instead of writing out similar feedback to multiple students, marking a level on a rubric can give the same feedback in less time (see Table 1, footnote 14 for a link to Chowdhury, Reference Chowdhury2019). A numbered sheet with the most common comments (and just putting a number in the paper/assignment where a longer comment would have been needed) can be used similarly, thus creating time for more developmental/personalized comments.

The second way that individualized consideration can be incorporated into a classroom is more basic: Pay attention to your students and treat them like individuals. Get to know them a bit, ask them questions, notice when they succeed or fail. Even in small classes, students can assume that they are not noticed. If you are able to notice that they miss consecutive classes or are not participating at their usual level, send them a message to check in to show that you’ve noticed and that you are concerned.

If you teach large classes, you can still take advantage of every opportunity to show individuals that you care. Do not be afraid to do so, like sending an email to a student whose grade improved a lot on the second exam or getting to class early and chatting with a few of the students. When you tell students in a large class that you care about them as individuals, and then you demonstrate that through your actions with even a few students, the other students are more likely to feel like you care, even if you do not interact with them directly.

Good transformational leaders provide support and recognition to their followers. Although as educators we create challenging environments and set high standards for our students, it does not mean we shouldn’t simultaneously help them to achieve the difficult goals we set. Pay attention to students and check in on them to ensure they know they have the support from you they need to succeed.

Large changes: create assignments using idealized influence and intellectual stimulation

For instructors who wish to make more substantial changes to their courses in order to incorporate transformational leadership, we recommend creating new experiential assignments for the course that can be used for multiple topics. New assignments can be tailored in order to use both intellectual stimulation (i.e., challenging followers to think differently and push boundaries) and idealized influence (i.e., the emotional component focused on role modeling). New assignments can be a large endeavor for instructors but can be very beneficial.

Intellectual stimulation can be incorporated into classes through experiential lessons that draw on active learning concepts. Assignments that require students to apply what they learn (rather than simply memorize facts) are intellectually challenging but can yield great benefits. Additionally, new assignments can also incorporate idealized influence. For instance, you can assign team-based field research or community service projects where students apply what they’ve learned to provide answers to real clients with real needs. Students may not be used to thinking in this way, but, consistent with social cognitive theory (Bandura, Reference Bandura1986), you can act as a role model to show how it is done, thereby building self-efficacy by helping students see difficult problems as challenges/opportunities rather than threats (Slavich & Zimbardo, Reference Slavich and Zimbardo2012). Assigning team projects adds another layer of idealized influence that allows the students to build efficacy and learn from each other. The hands-on nature of the projects (for both students and faculty) also provides greater opportunities for the individualized consideration via more regular feedback and support.