For many instructors, we are lucky enough to teach the same courses more than once. As we do so, we start to identify common student patterns and which portions of the course or assignments are challenging for them. From term to term, we adjust elements of our classes, offer advice to students on what it takes to be successful, and try to figure out how to best engage and support students based on what we’ve learned from teaching previous iterations of the course. While students benefit from our careful attention to the course design and our advice on how to best prepare for success in the course, we may be missing opportunities to leverage student perspectives. One way to capture these perspectives is by assigning an exercise where current students write letters or notes to future students.
