Submitted by: Jennifer Brewer, jbrewer1@uca.edu on 09/14/2026
We’re a few weeks into the semester now. Students have found their classrooms, figured out where things live in Brightspace most of the time, and hopefully settled into something resembling a routine.
They may even know which assignments are due without first experiencing a small burst of panic.
Progress!
But there’s another question worth asking: Do students know what successful work in your course actually looks like? For Weeks 4 & 5 of Faculty for Successful Students, we’re focusing on clarifying performance expectations.
Student-facing slide:
What feels obvious to us may not be obvious to students—especially first-year students who are still learning the sometimes-unwritten rules of college.
A Few Ways to Reinforce Success
- Revisit the roadmap. Remind students where to find assignment instructions, due dates, grades, feedback, and other frequently used course information in your syllabus and Brightspace course.
- Reach out after a missed assignment. A quick message now can help a student make a plan before one missed assignment becomes two…or three…or an entire semester’s worth of “I was going to get to that.”
- Make the hidden curriculum a little less hidden. Tell students the things we sometimes assume they already know: read before class, take notes, come prepared with questions, check feedback, and use that feedback on the next assignment.
- Show students what “good” looks like. Share examples, models, checklists, or rubrics that help students see the difference between simply completing an assignment and completing it successfully.
- Encourage a pre-submission check. Ask students to compare their work to the assignment criteria or rubric before clicking Submit. A few extra minutes of self-review can make a big difference.
Brightspace Byte: Let the Rubric Do Some Teaching
If you’re using a rubric in Brightspace, don’t save it for grading day.
Attach the rubric to the assignment and make sure students can review it before they submit their work. Then point it out.
You might even give students this simple prompt:
“Before you submit, compare your work to the rubric. What would you change if you were grading this yourself?”
Now the rubric is doing double duty: helping students understand your expectations and helping you provide more efficient, consistent feedback later.
Not bad for a tool that students might otherwise ignore until 11:58 p.m.
🍴 Coming Soon: Bear Bites – Wellness That Works
Thursday, October 1 at 12:15 p.m.
Christian Cafeteria Executive Dining Room
Facilitator: Shannon Riedmueller
Our next Bear Bites lunch turns to another important piece of student success: wellness.
We’ll talk about realistic ways faculty can support student well-being without trying to become counselors, life coaches, personal assistants, emergency snack providers, and interpreters of every life crisis before noon.
Keep These Handy
Faculty for Successful Students Website
Find the complete list of campaign themes, faculty strategies, resources, and upcoming Bear Bites events.
Faculty Strategy Presentation Slides
Remember: one slide per week is all it takes. Share the current slide with your students and spend a couple of minutes talking about it.
Thanks for helping make the unwritten rules of college a little more visible. Sometimes a clearer picture of what success looks like is exactly what students need to take the next step.