assignment design normal

Eberly Center

Teaching excellence & educational innovation, creating assignments.

Here are some general suggestions and questions to consider when creating assignments. There are also many other resources in print and on the web that provide examples of interesting, discipline-specific assignment ideas.

Consider your learning objectives.

What do you want students to learn in your course? What could they do that would show you that they have learned it? To determine assignments that truly serve your course objectives, it is useful to write out your objectives in this form: I want my students to be able to ____. Use active, measurable verbs as you complete that sentence (e.g., compare theories, discuss ramifications, recommend strategies), and your learning objectives will point you towards suitable assignments.

Design assignments that are interesting and challenging.

This is the fun side of assignment design. Consider how to focus students’ thinking in ways that are creative, challenging, and motivating. Think beyond the conventional assignment type! For example, one American historian requires students to write diary entries for a hypothetical Nebraska farmwoman in the 1890s. By specifying that students’ diary entries must demonstrate the breadth of their historical knowledge (e.g., gender, economics, technology, diet, family structure), the instructor gets students to exercise their imaginations while also accomplishing the learning objectives of the course (Walvoord & Anderson, 1989, p. 25).

Double-check alignment.

After creating your assignments, go back to your learning objectives and make sure there is still a good match between what you want students to learn and what you are asking them to do. If you find a mismatch, you will need to adjust either the assignments or the learning objectives. For instance, if your goal is for students to be able to analyze and evaluate texts, but your assignments only ask them to summarize texts, you would need to add an analytical and evaluative dimension to some assignments or rethink your learning objectives.

Name assignments accurately.

Students can be misled by assignments that are named inappropriately. For example, if you want students to analyze a product’s strengths and weaknesses but you call the assignment a “product description,” students may focus all their energies on the descriptive, not the critical, elements of the task. Thus, it is important to ensure that the titles of your assignments communicate their intention accurately to students.

Consider sequencing.

Think about how to order your assignments so that they build skills in a logical sequence. Ideally, assignments that require the most synthesis of skills and knowledge should come later in the semester, preceded by smaller assignments that build these skills incrementally. For example, if an instructor’s final assignment is a research project that requires students to evaluate a technological solution to an environmental problem, earlier assignments should reinforce component skills, including the ability to identify and discuss key environmental issues, apply evaluative criteria, and find appropriate research sources.

Think about scheduling.

Consider your intended assignments in relation to the academic calendar and decide how they can be reasonably spaced throughout the semester, taking into account holidays and key campus events. Consider how long it will take students to complete all parts of the assignment (e.g., planning, library research, reading, coordinating groups, writing, integrating the contributions of team members, developing a presentation), and be sure to allow sufficient time between assignments.

Check feasibility.

Is the workload you have in mind reasonable for your students? Is the grading burden manageable for you? Sometimes there are ways to reduce workload (whether for you or for students) without compromising learning objectives. For example, if a primary objective in assigning a project is for students to identify an interesting engineering problem and do some preliminary research on it, it might be reasonable to require students to submit a project proposal and annotated bibliography rather than a fully developed report. If your learning objectives are clear, you will see where corners can be cut without sacrificing educational quality.

Articulate the task description clearly.

If an assignment is vague, students may interpret it any number of ways – and not necessarily how you intended. Thus, it is critical to clearly and unambiguously identify the task students are to do (e.g., design a website to help high school students locate environmental resources, create an annotated bibliography of readings on apartheid). It can be helpful to differentiate the central task (what students are supposed to produce) from other advice and information you provide in your assignment description.

Establish clear performance criteria.

Different instructors apply different criteria when grading student work, so it’s important that you clearly articulate to students what your criteria are. To do so, think about the best student work you have seen on similar tasks and try to identify the specific characteristics that made it excellent, such as clarity of thought, originality, logical organization, or use of a wide range of sources. Then identify the characteristics of the worst student work you have seen, such as shaky evidence, weak organizational structure, or lack of focus. Identifying these characteristics can help you consciously articulate the criteria you already apply. It is important to communicate these criteria to students, whether in your assignment description or as a separate rubric or scoring guide . Clearly articulated performance criteria can prevent unnecessary confusion about your expectations while also setting a high standard for students to meet.

Specify the intended audience.

Students make assumptions about the audience they are addressing in papers and presentations, which influences how they pitch their message. For example, students may assume that, since the instructor is their primary audience, they do not need to define discipline-specific terms or concepts. These assumptions may not match the instructor’s expectations. Thus, it is important on assignments to specify the intended audience http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop10e.cfm (e.g., undergraduates with no biology background, a potential funder who does not know engineering).

Specify the purpose of the assignment.

If students are unclear about the goals or purpose of the assignment, they may make unnecessary mistakes. For example, if students believe an assignment is focused on summarizing research as opposed to evaluating it, they may seriously miscalculate the task and put their energies in the wrong place. The same is true they think the goal of an economics problem set is to find the correct answer, rather than demonstrate a clear chain of economic reasoning. Consequently, it is important to make your objectives for the assignment clear to students.

Specify the parameters.

If you have specific parameters in mind for the assignment (e.g., length, size, formatting, citation conventions) you should be sure to specify them in your assignment description. Otherwise, students may misapply conventions and formats they learned in other courses that are not appropriate for yours.

A Checklist for Designing Assignments

Here is a set of questions you can ask yourself when creating an assignment.

• Provided a written description of the assignment (in the syllabus or in a separate document)?
• Specified the purpose of the assignment?
• Indicated the intended audience?
• Articulated the instructions in precise and unambiguous language?
• Provided information about the appropriate format and presentation (e.g., page length, typed, cover sheet, bibliography)?  
• Indicated special instructions, such as a particular citation style or headings?  
• Specified the due date and the consequences for missing it?
• Articulated performance criteria clearly?
• Indicated the assignment’s point value or percentage of the course grade?
• Provided students (where appropriate) with models or samples?

Adapted from the WAC Clearinghouse at http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop10e.cfm .

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Designing Assignments for Learning

The rapid shift to remote teaching and learning meant that many instructors reimagined their assessment practices. Whether adapting existing assignments or creatively designing new opportunities for their students to learn, instructors focused on helping students make meaning and demonstrate their learning outside of the traditional, face-to-face classroom setting. This resource distills the elements of assignment design that are important to carry forward as we continue to seek better ways of assessing learning and build on our innovative assignment designs.

On this page:

Rethinking traditional tests, quizzes, and exams.

• Examples from the Columbia University Classroom
• Tips for Designing Assignments for Learning

Reflect On Your Assignment Design

Connect with the ctl.

• Resources and References

Cite this resource: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2021). Designing Assignments for Learning. Columbia University. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/designing-assignments/

Traditional assessments tend to reveal whether students can recognize, recall, or replicate what was learned out of context, and tend to focus on students providing correct responses (Wiggins, 1990). In contrast, authentic assignments, which are course assessments, engage students in higher order thinking, as they grapple with real or simulated challenges that help them prepare for their professional lives, and draw on the course knowledge learned and the skills acquired to create justifiable answers, performances or products (Wiggins, 1990). An authentic assessment provides opportunities for students to practice, consult resources, learn from feedback, and refine their performances and products accordingly (Wiggins 1990, 1998, 2014). 

Authentic assignments ask students to “do” the subject with an audience in mind and apply their learning in a new situation. Examples of authentic assignments include asking students to: 

• Write for a real audience (e.g., a memo, a policy brief, letter to the editor, a grant proposal, reports, building a website) and/or publication;
• Solve problem sets that have real world application; 
• Design projects that address a real world problem; 
• Engage in a community-partnered research project;
• Create an exhibit, performance, or conference presentation ;
• Compile and reflect on their work through a portfolio/e-portfolio.

Noteworthy elements of authentic designs are that instructors scaffold the assignment, and play an active role in preparing students for the tasks assigned, while students are intentionally asked to reflect on the process and product of their work thus building their metacognitive skills (Herrington and Oliver, 2000; Ashford-Rowe, Herrington and Brown, 2013; Frey, Schmitt, and Allen, 2012). 

It’s worth noting here that authentic assessments can initially be time consuming to design, implement, and grade. They are critiqued for being challenging to use across course contexts and for grading reliability issues (Maclellan, 2004). Despite these challenges, authentic assessments are recognized as beneficial to student learning (Svinicki, 2004) as they are learner-centered (Weimer, 2013), promote academic integrity (McLaughlin, L. and Ricevuto, 2021; Sotiriadou et al., 2019; Schroeder, 2021) and motivate students to learn (Ambrose et al., 2010). The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning is always available to consult with faculty who are considering authentic assessment designs and to discuss challenges and affordances.   

Examples from the Columbia University Classroom 

Columbia instructors have experimented with alternative ways of assessing student learning from oral exams to technology-enhanced assignments. Below are a few examples of authentic assignments in various teaching contexts across Columbia University. 

• E-portfolios: Statia Cook shares her experiences with an ePorfolio assignment in her co-taught Frontiers of Science course (a submission to the Voices of Hybrid and Online Teaching and Learning initiative); CUIMC use of ePortfolios ;
• Case studies: Columbia instructors have engaged their students in authentic ways through case studies drawing on the Case Consortium at Columbia University. Read and watch a faculty spotlight to learn how Professor Mary Ann Price uses the case method to place pre-med students in real-life scenarios;
• Simulations: students at CUIMC engage in simulations to develop their professional skills in The Mary & Michael Jaharis Simulation Center in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center in the Columbia School of Nursing; 
• Experiential learning: instructors have drawn on New York City as a learning laboratory such as Barnard’s NYC as Lab webpage which highlights courses that engage students in NYC;
• Design projects that address real world problems: Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy on the Engineering design projects completed using lab kits during remote learning. Watch Dr. Yesilevskiy talk about his teaching and read the Columbia News article . 
• Writing assignments: Lia Marshall and her teaching associate Aparna Balasundaram reflect on their “non-disposable or renewable assignments” to prepare social work students for their professional lives as they write for a real audience; and Hannah Weaver spoke about a sandbox assignment used in her Core Literature Humanities course at the 2021 Celebration of Teaching and Learning Symposium . Watch Dr. Weaver share her experiences.  

​Tips for Designing Assignments for Learning

While designing an effective authentic assignment may seem like a daunting task, the following tips can be used as a starting point. See the Resources section for frameworks and tools that may be useful in this effort.  

Align the assignment with your course learning objectives 

Identify the kind of thinking that is important in your course, the knowledge students will apply, and the skills they will practice using through the assignment. What kind of thinking will students be asked to do for the assignment? What will students learn by completing this assignment? How will the assignment help students achieve the desired course learning outcomes? For more information on course learning objectives, see the CTL’s Course Design Essentials self-paced course and watch the video on Articulating Learning Objectives .  

Identify an authentic meaning-making task

For meaning-making to occur, students need to understand the relevance of the assignment to the course and beyond (Ambrose et al., 2010). To Bean (2011) a “meaning-making” or “meaning-constructing” task has two dimensions: 1) it presents students with an authentic disciplinary problem or asks students to formulate their own problems, both of which engage them in active critical thinking, and 2) the problem is placed in “a context that gives students a role or purpose, a targeted audience, and a genre.” (Bean, 2011: 97-98). 

An authentic task gives students a realistic challenge to grapple with, a role to take on that allows them to “rehearse for the complex ambiguities” of life, provides resources and supports to draw on, and requires students to justify their work and the process they used to inform their solution (Wiggins, 1990). Note that if students find an assignment interesting or relevant, they will see value in completing it. 

Consider the kind of activities in the real world that use the knowledge and skills that are the focus of your course. How is this knowledge and these skills applied to answer real-world questions to solve real-world problems? (Herrington et al., 2010: 22). What do professionals or academics in your discipline do on a regular basis? What does it mean to think like a biologist, statistician, historian, social scientist? How might your assignment ask students to draw on current events, issues, or problems that relate to the course and are of interest to them? How might your assignment tap into student motivation and engage them in the kinds of thinking they can apply to better understand the world around them? (Ambrose et al., 2010). 

Determine the evaluation criteria and create a rubric

To ensure equitable and consistent grading of assignments across students, make transparent the criteria you will use to evaluate student work. The criteria should focus on the knowledge and skills that are central to the assignment. Build on the criteria identified, create a rubric that makes explicit the expectations of deliverables and share this rubric with your students so they can use it as they work on the assignment. For more information on rubrics, see the CTL’s resource Incorporating Rubrics into Your Grading and Feedback Practices , and explore the Association of American Colleges & Universities VALUE Rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). 

Build in metacognition

Ask students to reflect on what and how they learned from the assignment. Help students uncover personal relevance of the assignment, find intrinsic value in their work, and deepen their motivation by asking them to reflect on their process and their assignment deliverable. Sample prompts might include: what did you learn from this assignment? How might you draw on the knowledge and skills you used on this assignment in the future? See Ambrose et al., 2010 for more strategies that support motivation and the CTL’s resource on Metacognition ). 

Provide students with opportunities to practice

Design your assignment to be a learning experience and prepare students for success on the assignment. If students can reasonably expect to be successful on an assignment when they put in the required effort ,with the support and guidance of the instructor, they are more likely to engage in the behaviors necessary for learning (Ambrose et al., 2010). Ensure student success by actively teaching the knowledge and skills of the course (e.g., how to problem solve, how to write for a particular audience), modeling the desired thinking, and creating learning activities that build up to a graded assignment. Provide opportunities for students to practice using the knowledge and skills they will need for the assignment, whether through low-stakes in-class activities or homework activities that include opportunities to receive and incorporate formative feedback. For more information on providing feedback, see the CTL resource Feedback for Learning . 

Communicate about the assignment 

Share the purpose, task, audience, expectations, and criteria for the assignment. Students may have expectations about assessments and how they will be graded that is informed by their prior experiences completing high-stakes assessments, so be transparent. Tell your students why you are asking them to do this assignment, what skills they will be using, how it aligns with the course learning outcomes, and why it is relevant to their learning and their professional lives (i.e., how practitioners / professionals use the knowledge and skills in your course in real world contexts and for what purposes). Finally, verify that students understand what they need to do to complete the assignment. This can be done by asking students to respond to poll questions about different parts of the assignment, a “scavenger hunt” of the assignment instructions–giving students questions to answer about the assignment and having them work in small groups to answer the questions, or by having students share back what they think is expected of them.

Plan to iterate and to keep the focus on learning 

Draw on multiple sources of data to help make decisions about what changes are needed to the assignment, the assignment instructions, and/or rubric to ensure that it contributes to student learning. Explore assignment performance data. As Deandra Little reminds us: “a really good assignment, which is a really good assessment, also teaches you something or tells the instructor something. As much as it tells you what students are learning, it’s also telling you what they aren’t learning.” ( Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode 337 ). Assignment bottlenecks–where students get stuck or struggle–can be good indicators that students need further support or opportunities to practice prior to completing an assignment. This awareness can inform teaching decisions. 

Triangulate the performance data by collecting student feedback, and noting your own reflections about what worked well and what did not. Revise the assignment instructions, rubric, and teaching practices accordingly. Consider how you might better align your assignment with your course objectives and/or provide more opportunities for students to practice using the knowledge and skills that they will rely on for the assignment. Additionally, keep in mind societal, disciplinary, and technological changes as you tweak your assignments for future use. 

Now is a great time to reflect on your practices and experiences with assignment design and think critically about your approach. Take a closer look at an existing assignment. Questions to consider include: What is this assignment meant to do? What purpose does it serve? Why do you ask students to do this assignment? How are they prepared to complete the assignment? Does the assignment assess the kind of learning that you really want? What would help students learn from this assignment? 

Using the tips in the previous section: How can the assignment be tweaked to be more authentic and meaningful to students? 

As you plan forward for post-pandemic teaching and reflect on your practices and reimagine your course design, you may find the following CTL resources helpful: Reflecting On Your Experiences with Remote Teaching , Transition to In-Person Teaching , and Course Design Support .

The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is here to help!

For assistance with assignment design, rubric design, or any other teaching and learning need, please request a consultation by emailing [email protected] . 

Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework for assignments. The TILT Examples and Resources page ( https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources ) includes example assignments from across disciplines, as well as a transparent assignment template and a checklist for designing transparent assignments . Each emphasizes the importance of articulating to students the purpose of the assignment or activity, the what and how of the task, and specifying the criteria that will be used to assess students. 

Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) offers VALUE ADD (Assignment Design and Diagnostic) tools ( https://www.aacu.org/value-add-tools ) to help with the creation of clear and effective assignments that align with the desired learning outcomes and associated VALUE rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). VALUE ADD encourages instructors to explicitly state assignment information such as the purpose of the assignment, what skills students will be using, how it aligns with course learning outcomes, the assignment type, the audience and context for the assignment, clear evaluation criteria, desired formatting, and expectations for completion whether individual or in a group.

Villarroel et al. (2017) propose a blueprint for building authentic assessments which includes four steps: 1) consider the workplace context, 2) design the authentic assessment; 3) learn and apply standards for judgement; and 4) give feedback. 

References 

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., & DiPietro, M. (2010). Chapter 3: What Factors Motivate Students to Learn? In How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching . Jossey-Bass. 

Ashford-Rowe, K., Herrington, J., and Brown, C. (2013). Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 39(2), 205-222, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2013.819566 .  

Bean, J.C. (2011). Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom . Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. 

Frey, B. B, Schmitt, V. L., and Allen, J. P. (2012). Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. 17(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.7275/sxbs-0829  

Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., and Oliver, R. (2010). A Guide to Authentic e-Learning . Routledge. 

Herrington, J. and Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(3), 23-48. 

Litchfield, B. C. and Dempsey, J. V. (2015). Authentic Assessment of Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 142 (Summer 2015), 65-80. 

Maclellan, E. (2004). How convincing is alternative assessment for use in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 29(3), June 2004. DOI: 10.1080/0260293042000188267

McLaughlin, L. and Ricevuto, J. (2021). Assessments in a Virtual Environment: You Won’t Need that Lockdown Browser! Faculty Focus. June 2, 2021. 

Mueller, J. (2005). The Authentic Assessment Toolbox: Enhancing Student Learning through Online Faculty Development . MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. 1(1). July 2005. Mueller’s Authentic Assessment Toolbox is available online. 

Schroeder, R. (2021). Vaccinate Against Cheating With Authentic Assessment . Inside Higher Ed. (February 26, 2021).  

Sotiriadou, P., Logan, D., Daly, A., and Guest, R. (2019). The role of authentic assessment to preserve academic integrity and promote skills development and employability. Studies in Higher Education. 45(111), 2132-2148. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1582015    

Stachowiak, B. (Host). (November 25, 2020). Authentic Assignments with Deandra Little. (Episode 337). In Teaching in Higher Ed . https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/authentic-assignments/  

Svinicki, M. D. (2004). Authentic Assessment: Testing in Reality. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 100 (Winter 2004): 23-29. 

Villarroel, V., Bloxham, S, Bruna, D., Bruna, C., and Herrera-Seda, C. (2017). Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 43(5), 840-854. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2017.1412396    

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice . Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Wiggins, G. (2014). Authenticity in assessment, (re-)defined and explained. Retrieved from https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/authenticity-in-assessment-re-defined-and-explained/

Wiggins, G. (1998). Teaching to the (Authentic) Test. Educational Leadership . April 1989. 41-47. 

Wiggins, Grant (1990). The Case for Authentic Assessment . Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 2(2). 

Wondering how AI tools might play a role in your course assignments?

See the CTL’s resource “Considerations for AI Tools in the Classroom.”

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Teaching Commons > Teaching Guides > Assignment Design

Assignment Design

Here's a short list of some general assignment design strategies that apply to a wide variety of disciplines.

A number of strategies for deterring plagiarism are discussed, including asking your students to write about current topics relevant to your course and staging essay assignments throughout the quarter.

​Integrative learning occurs when students make connections among ideas and experiences in order to transfer learning to new contexts.​

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• Implementing Writing in Your Course

How to Design Successful Writing Assignments

As writing instructors ourselves, we are all too familiar with the many difficulties that come with assigning writing. It’s difficult to create meaningful assignments that help students learn what you want them to learn. And despite all the labor we put into it, students can still express frustration and confusion over writing assignments. It is tempting to ask, “Why bother?”

However, while thoughtful writing instruction tied to learning outcomes takes time to implement, that initial effort can lead to a huge time savings over the long run. Some writing you do not even need to grade! Once you know some of the key components of writing assignment design, you will be able to create a collection of high-value teaching materials that you can adapt for years to come. Also, your students will learn more, and will be better equipped to handle complexity. With regular writing practice and targeted feedback, over time they will become more authoritative participants and contributors in your field.

Designing successful writing assignments involves some or all of the following six strategies:

• Explicitly State Assignment Goals
• Tie Assignment Goals to Course Goals
• Create Antiracist Writing Assignments
• Offer Clear Instructions for Completion
• Clarify Expectations About Genre, Audience, and Formatting
• Provide Examples of the Kinds of Writing You Assign
• Asses Your Own Work

1. Explicitly State Assignment Goals

Are students “writing to learn” key course concepts from course materials or “learning to write” a new and specific form of communication in the class, such as a lab report or business memo? Or do you want your assignment to do some of both? Try to be as specific as possible when thinking about the assignment’s purpose. We encourage you to even jot down some of your desired outcomes. Being detailed about what you want students to gain from completing the assignment will help you create clear instructions for the assignment.

The example below is a strong example of a “writing to learn” assignment. In this assignment the instructor uses words such as "read," “explore,” “shape,” and “reflect” to clearly indicate that the act of composing in this assignment is more about attaining knowledge than it is about the creation of a final product. 

From a prompt for a personal narrative in a science writing course: 

All scientists have intellectual, cultural, and linguistic histories. For the sake of “neutrality” and “objectivity,” apprentices are often trained to separate themselves from these histories, especially when it comes to conducting and communicating research. This assignment asks you to read examples of scientists’ memoirs in various genres and then you will compose your own narrative in the mode of your choice, exploring how your identities, investments, and intellectual interests have shaped your science training and your trajectory as a scientist. This assignment serves as a form of reflection, orientation to/within a scientific field, and even as a professional credential (if desirable).

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2. Tie Assignment Goals to Course Goals

While you know why you are assigning a particular writing assignment, your students may not. Being clear about how completing the writing assignment will help your students learn can help create expectations and motivation for students. Without a clear understanding of how a writing assignment will help them learn, students may feel that they are being assigned useless "busywork."

Example 1 :

The example below is drawn from the final paper assignment for a course called “Imagining and Dreaming: Indigenous Futures,” taught by Lydia Heberling. In this assignment, the instructor not only clearly shows students how the assignment aligns with the course content, but it also reminds students how the third section of the course builds upon content learned in earlier units.

Throughout the quarter we have examined various writing practices that affirm the ongoing existence of American Indian peoples in spite of settler colonial attempts to remove, erase, and eradicate them. In our first sequence, we reflected on the relationship between place and identity and learned from Momaday that the land possesses stories from the past that can be accessed through interaction with and memories of those places.

In our second sequence, we examined a contemporary activist moment to deepen our understanding of the ongoing relational formations between Indigenous peoples and how those relations revitalize cultures from the brink of extinction. In learning about how various tribes worked together to protect a valuable natural resource by employing media and storytelling practices to garner support and attention, we learned that regardless of the outcome, activist moments like Standing Rock demonstrate a strong trans-Indigenous community that continues to survive in spite of ongoing settler colonial tactics of dispossession and erasure.

In this third, and last sequence, we are focusing on imagining, or dreaming about, vibrant Indigenous futures. Athabascan poet and scholar (and UW professor) Dian Million defines dreaming the following way [. . .]

Your task i n this next assignment is to return to the place you described in Paper 1, imagine what that place looks like 100 years from now. . .

Example 2 :

Here’s a second example of a writing assignment, created by Jen Malone for a course on writing in environmental science, which clearly demonstrates to students how the writing assignment both builds on previous course content and how it will help students cultivate research skills that they will be able to use in future writing assignments.

Thus far in this class, we’ve written an Op-Ed about ecotourism, and we will be moving into writing a short research paper on the topic of your choice later on in the quarter. But first, we’re going to do something a bit different.

Learning to research well is largely about practice—both in terms of growing accustomed to search engines (particularly scholarly ones) and library databases, and in terms of learning to plug different versions of your research terms into these search engines/databases until you find useful sources. Using research well is largely about figuring out how to analyze your sources--particularly in combination with one another, as a body of research. In order to practice both of these skills (which will totally help us to prepare for Paper #3, later on in the quarter), for Paper #2 we will. . .

3. Create Antiracist Writing Assignments

Antiracist writing instruction is usually discussed in relation to assessment, but it should be considered earlier than that, during assignment creation (just as it should be considered as key elements of curriculum and class culture). Antiracist writing assignment design can be pursued in two ways: through the subject matter, or content, of the writing assignments; and through your values around language use. Some brief suggestions for each follow.

Promoting antiracist subject matter in writing assignments:

Take a step back and discuss knowledge frameworks in your course and in your field. Every discipline has knowledge traditions and methods that can be problematic. How did these traditions come to be? Who do they serve, and who do they harm?

Avoid reductionist binaries when discussing complex questions. For example, framing a question like "What are the pros and cons of conducting medical research without subjects' knowledge or consent?" may lead students to consider both sides as having equal moral weight. A more specific (so a particular context can be considered) and open-ended (so students are not led to one or the other answer) question might work better. For example, "What are some of the ethical considerations of conducting flu vaccine clinical trials without participants' consent?"

Give students opportunities to explore their own identities in relation to the course content. Drawing personal connections not only helps foster deeper learning, but it can also cultivate a student’s sense of belonging in the field. It may also help you see how your field might serve some but not others. 

Encourage students to engage academic and non-academic source material. Have discussions about what “counts” as authoritative information in your field, and why.

Promoting linguistic justice in writing assignments: 

As this site from Wesleyan College recommends, “Centralize rhetorical situations and writing contexts rather than language standards in your writing classroom.” If you show that all language use (content, structure, syntax, vocabulary, style) is based on authorial choices made in particular contexts and for particular audiences, then you can help bust the myth of the universal standard of “academic English.”

Encourage students to use their own linguistic traditions whenever possible. For example, let students freewrite in a native language or dialect. Encourage them to draw connections between their own language backgrounds and the disciplinary discourse you are teaching. This is called translanguaging, and it can be a powerful tool for learning.

Avoid penalizing language use. If there is a certain style or vocabulary you want students to use, be explicit about why discourse is used that way, and how it conveys discipline-specific knowledge.

Further reading: 10 Ways to Tackle Linguistic Bias in Our Classrooms (Inside HigherEd)

4. Offer Clear Instructions for Completion

Investigative or writing techniques that seem obvious to you—such as making an argument, analyzing, evaluating—might mean something different to students from outside your specific discipline. Being clear about what you mean when you use certain terms can help students navigate an assignment more successfully. While it might feel clunky or obvious, including this information in an assignment will help steer your students in the right direction and minimize miscommunication.

In the following excerpt from a prompt for a writing-in-history course taught by Sumyat Thu, the instructor asks students to use research in their papers, and then clearly describes, and supports with examples from the class and library resources, what counts as appropriate source material.

This essay is based on research. Students are expected to use primary sources and secondary works in developing their essays. We do not frown on the use of on-line resources ; indeed, some very good reference works ( identified on the history librarian Ms. Mudrock's research guide) are available as on-line books, and the library has e-book versions of Paul Spickard's  Almost All Aliens . Nonetheless, we strongly urge students to utilize the very rich materials available in the UW Libraries, particularly scholarly books and articles. The UW Libraries' on-line catalog can be explored with keyword searches, and such indexes as America: History and Life (again, see Ms. Mudrock’s website) are very helpful as well.

In this second example, again by Jen Malone, we see how the instructor not only indicates what chronological steps students must take to complete the assignment, but also how she includes thorough and clear instructions for how students can complete each step.

So, the first step you’ll need to take will be to choose a topic . You may wish to choose the same topic you’ll be using for your research paper in ENVIR 100 (if you’ve chosen that option—if so, please follow any instructions they’ve given you for choosing a topic for that), or something related to environmental science that simply interests you, or a topic from the following list of suggestions:

• GMOs (particularly with regards to the ecosystem and/or biodiversity),
• The environmental impact of meat production
• Bees and Colony Collapse Disorder

The second step you’ll need to take will be to do the research —you’ll need to find some sources (via library search engines, Google scholar, etc.). Keep some notes or a log of this process, since you’ll have to talk about how this went for you in your final report. Then you’ll need to read/skim the sources you’ve selected, and then you’ll need to create an annotated bibliography in which you list and briefly summarize those sources. An annotated bibliography is a particularly handy step when performing research, or when writing a paper that involves research. Basically, it is a list of the sources you intend to use for your paper (like a Works Cited page, you may use either MLA or APA format), but with the addition of a substantial paragraph (or two, if you wish) beneath each entry in which you summarize, and often evaluate, the source. This will help you to consider the sources you find as a body of research, and this makes using sources easier because you’ll have these initial notes handy as you write your report.

After you find and skim through your sources, the third step you’ll need to take will be to write the report .

• In the first section of the report, you’ll want to talk about your research process (What was this like? What was easy for you and what was difficult? What did you learn? What search terms did you use? How did those terms change?).
• In the second section of the report, you’ll want to talk about the body of research as a whole (How would you describe the issues/terms/debates surrounding the topic? What did you find? What do these sources indicate—both in terms of conclusions drawn and questions raised? How do these sources fit together and/or differ? What did you find most interesting?)
• In the third section of the report, you’ll want to take a moment to consider how this body of research fits it with what you’re learning in ENVIR 100 and where you might take the topic in a future paper (How do you see what you found regarding this topic as relating to what has been discussed in class thus far? What are the stakes of this topic and for whom? What aspects of this topic do we seem to know little about? What are the questions you still have about this topic? And, finally, now that you’ve read through this body of research, if you were going to write a paper on this topic, what might your basic argument be?). We’ll discuss this all in more detail next week, after you’ve compiled your sources.

Note: the second example may be a lot longer of a writing prompt than many of us are used to. This is not a bad thing. In fact, students tend to really appreciate such clear instruction and it reduces the amount of time you will spend clarifying confusion about what is expected. Also, instructions like these can be easily re-purposed for other, similar assignments in the future so you will not have to reinvent the wheel each time.

5. Clarify Expectations About Genre, Audience, and Formatting

Students will approach your writing assignment with varying knowledge and experience. Unless you have already instructed students explicitly in class about the knowledge and skills needed to complete a writing assignment, you cannot assume that students will already possess that knowledge. While clear, explicit prompts are essential, we also strongly urge you to discuss in class the genre you are assigning as well. Offer examples, both from professionals in the field, and from former students. The more exposure students have to the kinds of writing you want to see, the the more inclusive and accessible your assignments will be. We know of a history TA who said that one of her students, an engineering major, wasn't clear on the nature of a historiography, so he turned in his paper formatted like a technical report! This is an understandable mistake for a student to make, and providing examples can prevent mistakes like this from happening in your own classroom.

Below are two examples of how instructors communicate their expectations about genre, audience, and formatting to students. The first example is less helpful for students because it leaves key parts of the instructor’s expectations vague. (What is the writing assignment’s audience? What citation style does the instructor prefer? Is the works cited page part of the assignment or not?) The second example provides more detail for students.

Example 1: Paper must be 4-5 pages double spaced and must include a works cited page.

Example 2 : T he business memo should be fo rmatted according to the parameters we have discussed: no more than two pages long , typed, single-spaced with one space between paragraphs , with standard margins, in Times New Roman font (12 point), written for an audience of industry professionals.

6. Provide Examples of the Kinds of Writing You Assign

Studies have shown that examples can be a powerful learning tool in writing instruction. We recommend that instructors distribute examples of both successful and unsuccessful student writing to their students and explain why the examples are successful or unsuccessful.

Ask students who have submitted successful assignments if you can borrow their work as examples for future classes. Be sure to remove students’ identifying information from the assignments before they are given to future students.

If you do not have examples of unsuccessful writing (remember, sharing even anonymized student writing without the author's consent would be unethical), you can alternatively create a list of common pitfalls and mistakes to avoid when completing the writing assignment. Distribute the list to your students. Be sure to ground these pitfalls in terms of higher order issues specific to this genre, rather than just distributing a one-size-fits-all personal list of writing pet peeves.

Ask students which examples help them learn the genre, and which do not. Over time your students will help you curate a really great collection of samples.

Create occasional reading assignments where you ask students to find and analyze examples of writing by professionals in the field. What makes them effective or ineffective examples of the genre? What are some of the text's defining characteristics? These kinds of analyses can really help students improve their own writing.

7. Assess Your Own Work

Assessment is not just for student writing: it’s also important to assess the efficacy of the assignments you create. If student work is disappointing or students have struggled with an assignment, it most likely a result of ineffective assignment design. Please remember: everyone , even seasoned writing instructors, has assignments that do not go well initially. That is normal and ok!

We recommend that you engage in self-reflection as to why your assignment did not turn out well, and make tweaks to the assignment and/or grading criteria as needed. Here are some questions to ask yourself to reflect on your writing assignments.

Did many students turn in work which did not meet your expectations? In what specific ways did they fall short?

Did many students struggle with the assignment or a particular piece of the assignment? Where, exactly, did they struggle and how do you know?

Were many students surprised or dissatisfied by their grades on the assignment? Why do you think this happened?

Strategies for understanding what went wrong

Ask your students, either in class, on Canvas, or in a survey like a Google Form, to debrief the assignment. What was easy for them about the assignment? What did they learn from it? What was challenging? What was unclear?

Take writing assignments to writing centers such as OWRC or CLUE to get student feedback on updated or streamlined assignments. Student writing tutors can be a great resource-- they've seen hundreds of writing assignments!

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Designing your Syllabus: Backward Design

When you design a syllabus for any course, you begin with the outcomes that you intend for your students to achieve, and you work backwards from these to particular readings and writing assignments. This method, formalized, is called the method of backward design. Backward design is a useful method for any professor in that it ensures that all assignments, readings, and activities will connect students with the outcomes that the professor deems essential to the course.

At the first stage of backward design, writing instructors should consider two issues: what they want their students to know/experience in their courses, and what they want them to be able to do, in these courses and afterwards.  Put another way, instructors need to think both about their focusing questions and their course outcomes. 

You'll note that the first issue—what instructors want their students to know/experience—distinguishes between knowledge and experience. Indeed, this distinction is significant in a writing class, where course content (while important) does not drive the course. The best writing classes consider the students' experiential learning in their course design. To accomplish the aims of experiential learning, it's important to come up with a course question that can bring together the many smaller questions of the course and that can engage students intellectually and experientially. For instance: What is happiness? What are the roots of violence? What is the nature of the self? Technology: friend or foe? 

These are the kinds of questions that can focus course readings and class discussions. They are also the kinds of questions that students can engage with outside of the context of the writing classroom. Finally, they are the kinds of questions around which professors can build a course that is intellectually coherent. 

Even more important the the course questions, however, are the course outcomes — in other words, what students should be able to do when the course comes to an end.  In the first-year writing classes, an instructor's set of outcomes will be informed by the course outcomes (see the outcomes for Writing 2-3 , Writing 5 , or the First-Year Seminar ) . Take some time to review these outcomes, and to consider how every assignment and classroom activity might work to help students achieve them. 

Designing Your Assignment

As you design your assignments, you'll want first to determine the outcomes that each assignment will work to accomplish. If your aim is to ensure, for instance, that students learn how to shape good academic questions, you might ask them to compose, share, and then revise their questions.  If you want them to develop their research capabilities, have them take these questions to the library databases in order to look for appropriate sources.  If you want to ensure that students learn how to work with sources, ask them to compose a summary and synthesis document, in which they nutshell their sources and show how these sources are in conversation with one another.  Finally, if you want to ensure that they learn how to compose and revise, assign drafts and give them feedback.  Have their peers offer feedback as well.  Whatever you decide to assign, use the outcomes to guide you. 

Second, you'll want to scaffold your assignments, so that students can build on their capabilities.  You'll see in the examples cited in the paragraph above that each assignment builds on the one before.  Students work on one step in the process and get feedback on it (from the instructor or their peers) before moving on to the next challenge.  By scaffolding, instructors can be sure that students know how to successfully complete the final assignment.  Students can also track the evolution and transfer of their skills. 

Third, writing instructors frequently comment that Dartmouth's ten-week term is very short.  Assignments must therefore be designed to achieve multiple outcomes. Consider the first step of the assignment sequence outlined above: "Ask students to compose, share, and then revise their questions."  Several outcomes are achieved here:  students are composing, they are collaborating, and they are revising.  If you design your assignments to achieve multiple outcomes, you'll be surprised at how much your students can accomplish.  

Whatever assignments you design, do understand that simply making an assignment does not ensure that students will acquire the desired skills. For an assignment to succeed it should be transparent and progressive—that is, your students should understand your goals for the assignment, and they should be able to chart their own development in relation to these goals. The better students understand your assignments and your vision for your course, the better they'll be able to meet the course aims.

Spacing Your Assignments

When designing your syllabus, you will want to consider carefully the spacing of your writing assignments. It's important that students are given enough time to write and to revise their papers. Professors who use a writing assistant will also want to be sure that they provide the writing assistant enough time to read and respond to students' papers.

Here are some things to consider:

• Give students time to move through the writing process. If you are teaching a first-year course whose purpose is to make students able writers, you will have to give them time to move through the various inventions, composing, and revision processes. One way of making room for these various steps in the writing process is by assigning a paper in three parts: the pre-draft (which could consist of crafting questions, writing a discovery draft, creating an outline, and so on), the first draft, and the revised final draft.
• Give students time to revise. If we want our students to revise their papers substantively, we must give them adequate time. This means that we need to get their papers back on time, particularly the first drafts. Consider whether you'll need two days, four days, or a full week to return an assignment. Also consider whether or not you expect the student to see a writing assistant or to meet with you between drafts.
• Try not to make a reading assignment on the day a major paper is due. Let your students focus their attention fully on their writing. Schedule writing workshops the day that a paper is due instead.
• Long assignments (particularly those that involve research) work better if you break them up into smaller assignments. Ask students to bring in an annotated bibliography, a working thesis, an outline, etc. Scheduling these shorter assignments ensures that students remain engaged in the writing process. It also prevents them from writing the paper at the last minute.
• Consider what's best for you. Many students and instructors like Monday due dates: students get the weekend to work on their papers, and professors keep their weekends free. Other instructors prefer for papers to come in on Thursday or Friday, so that they can use the weekends to respond.  Think of your own rhythms as you plan.

Crafting Your Assignments

Professors often wonder, when creating writing assignments, how detailed the assignments should be. Some professors don't use prompts, requiring students to come up with the topics and questions themselves. Others create detailed writing assignments, arguing that this allows students to save energy for writing their papers (as opposed to generating topics and questions). Still others craft writing prompts that offer students ideas for writing but that leave plenty of room for students to come up with ideas of their own. We'll consider the options of prompting and not prompting here.

The Open Writing Assignment

Professors who don't use writing prompts believe that an important part of scholarship is learning to raise questions that will yield a good academic argument. Instead of creating a writing prompt, these professors craft an assignment process that supports students as they work through the various challenges of scholarly inquiry. In a sense, these professors are asking students to craft their own prompts, and to write the paper that will answer the questions that they outline there. The obvious pedagogical advantage of the open assignment is that it allows students to learn to develop topics on their own. In the open assignment, students are not only permitted to pursue intellectual questions that are of interest to them, they also gain some experience in framing a topic that is neither too narrow nor too broad.

If you elect not to use prompts, you should intend to devote class and conference time to assisting students in this process. For instance, you might ask students to come up with three good academic questions about the course's reading materials. Students can post these questions on the Canvas discussion board. You can then workshop these questions, using class time to talk about which questions will (or won't) yield a good academic argument, and why. You should also comment thoroughly on the questions submitted, raising further questions for the student to consider. You might also invite students to comment on one another's questions on the Canvas site. Students can then revise their questions and resubmit them for another round of feedback before they write.

Some professors find it useful to offer students models of good academic questions. Other professors give explicit instruction regarding what the paper shouldn't do and leave it to the students to determine what they want to do within these parameters. All professors ask students to submit their prompts in advance of drafting so that they can determine, before the students proceed too far, whether or not these topics are appropriate and promising.

Whatever you decide, do note that a prompt-less writing assignment needs a good infrastructure in order to succeed. Indeed, Karen Gocsik's research assignment for Writing 2-3 has twelve steps, indicating the many moments of support and feedback that first-year students require as they work through the process of writing a research paper Your assignment need not have twelve steps to be effective; it may have four steps, for instance, or five. Craft your assignment steps according to the aims of your assignment.

Crafting a Good Prompt

Writing a good prompt for a writing assignment is a difficult task. Too often, professors write prompts for writing assignments knowing exactly what sorts of essays they want their students to produce, only to get papers that miss the mark. How can you produce writing assignments that clearly convey the tasks and questions you want your students to undertake?

Before writing your prompts, you will want to consider a few matters.

• Consider what you want the assignment to require the students to do, in relation to the course outcomes.  What outcomes are most important at this point in your course? How can the assignment move students closer to achieving these outcomes?  
• Consider what you want the assignment to do, in terms of the larger questions of your course. What questions, in particular, do you want your students to consider? Are these questions related closely or peripherally to topics you've been discussing in class? 
• Consider what kinds of thinking you want students to do. Do you want your students to define, illustrate, compare, analyze, or evaluate? You will want to come up with prompts that clearly direct students as to the kind of thinking they will have to do.
• Consider your students' writing processes. Are you focusing on teaching students to place their arguments within a larger conversation or context? If so, your prompt should address the importance of context and suggest things that you want students to consider as they write. Are you hoping to get your students to understand the mechanics of the paragraph? Your prompt might ask students to write paragraphs that summarize, then analyze, then synthesize, so that they can see how different tasks require different paragraph development.
• If the paper involves research, consider outlining your research requirements in a way that educates students about the research process. You may want to require students to use a variety of sources, or to use certain sources that you've either put on reserve or listed in the course syllabus. Understand that students may need help with finding sources, evaluating them, and incorporating them successfully into their arguments. Craft your prompt accordingly.

Once you've determined the outcomes for your writing assignment, you're ready to craft the prompt. Here are some things to consider:

• Break the assignment down into specific tasks. If, for example, you want students to compare the effectiveness of two political movements, you might first ask students to define the goals of each movement; then to consider the history of each movement; then to discuss how the history of the movement affected the creation of its goals; and finally, to consider how history influenced the movement's ultimate success (or failure).
• Break the assignment down into specific questions. For example, if you want students to discuss the formal elements of a particular painting, you might, as Art Historian Joy Kenseth does, ask the students: What is the focus of the painting? How does the artist treat such things as light and shadow, line, space, and composition? How does this treatment communicate the painting's ideas? If you don't want students to answer all of the questions you put to them, but want them simply to consider these questions before writing their responses, make that clear.
• Provide context. A writing prompt that asks students to discuss whether or not the films of Leni Riefenstahl are propagandistic does not point students to the interesting controversy surrounding Riefenstahl's work. Nor does it indicate whether they should limit themselves to discussing the formal elements of Riefenstahl's films, or whether they should include biographical detail. The more contextual information you give your students, the more precise their responses will be.
• Craft each sentence carefully. You will want to be sure that there is no room for misunderstanding the assignment. If you ask students to analyze how a myth informed paintings and sculptors during the first century of the Renaissance, do you want students to examine the works themselves or the artists that produced them? Sometimes a slip in word choice or the careless placement of a modifier can leave students confused as to what, precisely, you are asking them to do.
• Be clear about what you don't want. If you don't want students to discuss Virginia Woolf's personal experiences as they relate to A Room of One's Own , then be sure to instruct them not to include biographical references. In addition, explaining why such information should be excluded will help students to understand better the questions and the desired response.
• Be clear about the paper requirements. Have you indicated the paper's due date? How many pages you require? How many sources you require? What special criteria (if any) you will use when grading this paper? If your requirements are rigid, say so. If you're flexible, let the students know. This may be the aspect of the prompt that students are most anxious about, so offer as much detail as you think is necessary.
• Try to write (or at least to outline) the assignment yourself. If you have trouble outlining a paper based on this prompt, your students will, too. You will want to think about ways of revising the assignment to make it clearer and more manageable.
• Discuss the assignment with the class. When you distribute the assignment to the class, take time to go over it. Ask for their questions. Make notes as to where their understanding of the assignment differs from yours so that you can improve the prompt the next time you use it.

Strategies for Effective Assignment Design

As students progress through their degree programs, it becomes increasingly important for them to learn the major genres, research strategies, and writing conventions of their field. Because writing expectations vary across disciplinary and professional contexts, students benefit from transparent explanation of what those expectations are, how to achieve them, and why they’re important. This can be accomplished through carefully designed formal assignments.

Experts in Writing across the Curriculum argue that students learn most successfully when formal assignments engage them with “authentic research projects that promote disciplinary ways of inquiry and argument and are written in real disciplinary genres. [1]  from the National Survey of Student Engagement shows that deep learning depends less on the amount of writing assigned in a course than on the design of the writing assignments themselves. According to this and other research, effective assignments have the following three features: [2]  a meaning-constructing task, clear explanations of expectations, and interactive components.

Engage students in meaning-making

A meaning-constructing task asks students to bring their own critical thinking to bear on problems that matter to both the writer and the intended audience. A meaning-constructing task typically presents students with a disciplinary problem, asks them to formulate their own problems, or otherwise engages them in active critical thinking in a specific rhetorical context.

Provide clear expectations

Effective assignments clearly present the instructor’s expectations for a successful performance. Ideally, the assignment prompt also explains the purpose of the assignment in terms of the course’s learning goals and presents the instructor’s evaluation criteria.

Include interactive components

Interactive activities situate writing as a process of inquiry and discovery, promote productive talk about the writer’s emerging ideas, and encourage multiple drafts and global revision.

Create a Rhetorical Context

Creating a rhetorical context for your assignments means considering the role students will play in their writing, the audience they are meant to address, the format (or genre) of the writing task, and the task they are meant to accomplish. The mnemonic RAFT is helpful to recall these four components. [3]

Having a role helps students understand the kind of change they hope to bring about in their audience’s view of the subject matter. Without a specific role to play other than “student,” writers in your class might assume that their purpose is simply to regurgitate information to the instructor.

Specifying an audience goes hand-in-hand with establishing the student’s role. By identifying an audience, the instructor can help students see how their writing might influence a reader’s stance.

Format/Genre

By specifying a genre (e.g., experimental report, op-ed piece, proposal), the assignment helps students transfer earlier genre knowledge to the current task and make decisions about document design, organization, and style. It also helps instructors clarify expectations about length, citation style, etc. More important still, the rhetorical awareness enabled by writing in a specific genre also creates an awareness of a discourse community at work. To students, college writing assignments often appear to be an isolated transaction between student and teacher. Students assume that strange features of the assignment reflect the idiosyncrasies of the instructor rather than the conventions of a larger community. When instructors assign authentic genres there is an opportunity to make discourse community values and expectations explicit.

Task (Problem-Focused)

The task itself sets forth the subject matter of the assignment. Unlike topic-focused tasks (e.g., research/write about X), which can lead to unfocused papers that merely report information, a truly engaging task is typically embedded in disciplinary “problems” and disciplinary ways of thinking and argumentation. A problem-focused task should give students agency to bring their own critical thinking to bear on the subject matter—that is, to engage them in making their own meaning.

Use Transparent Assignment Design

Often an assignment that seems clear to you can be confusing to your students. While designing your assignments, ask yourself what might be unclear to your students—what assumptions might you be making about their procedural or background knowledge? Scholar Mary Ann Winkelmas

Align writing activities and assignments clearly with learning objectives

The goal of transparent assignment design is to “to make learning processes explicit and equally accessible for all students” (winkelmes et al., 2019, p. 1)., make clear the purpose, task, and criteria for success., for more information visit tilt (transparency in teaching and learning).

Example: Less Transparent

Assignment from an Introductory Communications Course

1. Select a professional in your prospective academic discipline and/or career filed that is considered an expert in an area in which you are interested 2. Secure an interview with the professional for a date and time that is convenient for both of you. 3. Prepare 8-10 questions to ask the professional about their knowledge of a particular academic discipline/career field. 4. Conduct a 20-30 minute, face-to-face interview to gather knowledge that will help you make an informed decision about the major/career you are considering. You will want to audio/video record the interview with the interviewee’s permission 5. Prepare a typed transcript of the questions and answers using the audio/ video recording 6. Write a 400-500 word reflection paper in which you address the following items: a. Who you selected and why? b. What you learned from them that is most interesting? c. What this assignment helped you learn about your major/career decision? 7. What questions you still have? 8. Submit the typed transcript and reflection paper to your instructor

Revised EXAMPLE: More Transparent

Communications 100E, Interview Assignment Used by permission of Katharine Johnson, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Due dates: - Sept 30 - Draft interview questions - October 15 - Transcript of interviews - November 17 - Report

Purpose : The purpose of this assignment is to help you make an informed decision about the major/career you are considering.

Skills : This assignment will help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in school and professional life: - Accessing and collecting information from appropriate primary and secondary sources - Synthesizing information to develop informed views - Composing a well-organized, clear, concise report to expand your knowledge on a subject in your major.

Knowledge : This assignment will also help you to become familiar with the following important content knowledge in this discipline: - Issues facing professionals in a field - Scholarly research formats for documenting sources and creating reference pages (i.e., bibliographies).

Task : To complete this assignment you should: 1. Secure an interview with two professionals in hour prospective academic discipline and/or career field who are considered experts. 2. Schedule the interviews with the professionals at a date and time that is convenient for both of you. 3. Prepare 8-10 questions to ask the professionals about their expertise in a particular academic or career field. The questions must be based on a review of the filed using 5 credible sources as defined by the librarian in our research module. Sources should be cited using APA formatting. 4. Conduct a 2 -3 -minute, face-to-face interview with each professional to gather knowledge that will help you make an informed decision about the major/career you are considering. You will want to audio/video record the interview with the interviewee’s permission. 5. Prepare a typed transcript of the interviews 6. Compare and contrast the information provided by both professionals in an 8-page (1.5 spaced, 12point Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins) report that documents the advantages and disadvantages of a career in the selected field.

Criteria for success : Please see the attached rubric.Type your textbox content here.

Information Literacy Skills Needed for Research Writing

Asking students to engage authentic, discipline-specific problems requires a kind of dismantling of the commonly encountered “research paper” culture in which students think of research as going to the library to find sources that can be summarized, paraphrased, and quoted. To move from “research paper” culture to a culture in which research projects are written in disciplinary genres, instructors need to help students develop the following skills related to information literacy: [4]

Click "next" in the bottom right corner to continue reading this chapter.

Consider the Novice-Expert Framework

Consider backward design.

• Bean and Melzer, p. 64-65 ↵
• All of this section excerpted and paraphrased from Bean and Melzer, pp. 66-68 ↵
• All of this section excerpted and paraphrased from Bean and Melzer, pp. 200-202 ↵
• Bizup, Joseph. “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing.” Rhetoric Review, 2008, Vol.27 (1), p.72-86. DOI: 10.1080/07350190701738858 ↵

Locally Sourced: Writing Across the Curriculum Sourcebook Copyright © by [email protected] is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Designing assignments.

Making a few revisions to your writing assignments can make a big difference in the writing your students will produce. The most effective changes involve specifying what you would like students to do in the assignment and suggesting concrete steps students can take to achieve that goal.

Clarify what you want your students to do…and why they’re doing it

Kerry Walk, former director of the Princeton Writing Program, offers these principles to consider when designing a writing assignment (condensed and adapted from the original): “At least one sentence on your assignment sheet should explicitly state what you want students to do. The assignment is usually signaled by a verb, such as “analyze,” “assess,” “explain,” or “discuss.” For example, in a history course, after reading a model biography, students were directed as follows: ‘Your assignment is to write your own biographical essay on Mao, using Mao’s reminiscences (as told to a Western journalist), speeches, encyclopedia articles, a medical account from Mao’s physician, and two contradictory obituaries.’ In addition, including a purpose for the assignment can provide crucial focus and guidance. Explaining to students why they’re doing a particular assignment can help them grasp the big picture—what you’re trying to teach them and why learning it is worthwhile. For example, ‘This assignment has three goals: for you to (1) see how the concepts we’ve learned thus far can be used in a different field from economics, (2) learn how to write about a model, and (3) learn to critique a model or how to defend one.’”

Link course writing goals to assignments

Students are more likely to understand what you are asking them to do if the assignment re-uses language that you’ve already introduced in class discussions, in writing activities, or in your Writing Guide. In the assignment below, Yale professor Dorlores Hayden uses writing terms that have been introduced in class:

Choose your home town or any other town or city you have lived in for at least a year. Based upon the readings on the history of transportation, discuss how well or how poorly pedestrian, horse-drawn, steam- powered, and electric transportation might have served your town or city before the gasoline automobile. (If you live in a twentieth-century automobile-oriented suburb, consider rural transportation patterns before the car and the suburban houses.) How did topography affect transportation choices? How did transportation choices affect the local economy and the built environment? Length, 1000 words (4 typed pages plus a plan of the place and/or a photograph). Be sure to argue a strong thesis and back it up with quotations from the readings as well as your own analysis of the plan or photograph.

Give students methods for approaching their work

Strong writing assignments not only identify a clear writing task, they often provide suggestions for how students might begin to accomplish the task. In order to avoid overloading students with information and suggestions, it is often useful to separate the assignment prompt and the advice for approaching the assignment. Below is an example of this strategy from one of Yale’s English 114 sections:

Assignment: In the essays we have read so far, a debate has emerged over what constitutes cosmopolitan practice , loosely defined as concrete actions motivated by a cosmopolitan philosophy or perspective. Using these readings as evidence, write a 5-6-page essay in which you make an argument for your own definition of effective cosmopolitan practice.

Method: In order to develop this essay, you must engage in a critical conversation with the essays we have read in class. In creating your definition of cosmopolitan practice, you will necessarily draw upon the ideas of these authors. You must show how you are building upon, altering, or working in opposition to their ideas and definitions through your quotation and analysis of their concepts and evidence.

Questions to consider:  These questions are designed to prompt your thinking. You do not need to address all these questions in the body of your essay; instead, refer to any of these issues only as they support your ideas.

• How would you define cosmopolitan practice? How does your definition draw upon or conflict with the definitions offered by the authors we have read so far?
• What are the strengths of your definition of cosmopolitan practice? What problems does it address? How do the essays we have read support those strengths? How do those strengths address weaknesses in other writers’ arguments?
• What are the limitations or problems with your definition? How would the authors we have read critique your definition? How would you respond to those critiques?

Case Study: A Sample Writing Assignment and Revision

A student responding to the following assignment felt totally at sea, with good reason:

Write an essay describing the various conceptions of property found in your readings and the different arguments for and against the distribution of property and the various justifications of, and attacks on, ownership. Which of these arguments has any merits? What is the role of property in the various political systems discussed? The essay should concentrate on Hobbes, Locke, and Marx.

“How am I supposed to structure the essay?” the student asked. “Address the first question, comparing the three guys? Address the second question, doing the same, etc.? … Do I talk about each author separately in terms of their conceptions of the nation, and then have a section that compares their arguments, or do I have a 4 part essay which is really 4 essays (two pages each) answering each question? What am I going to put in the intro, and the conclusion?” Given the tangle of ideas presented in the assignment, the student’s panic and confusion are understandable.

A better-formulated assignment poses significant challenges, but one of them is not wondering what the instructor secretly wants. Here’s a possible revision, which follows the guidelines suggested above:

[Course Name and Title]

[Instructor’s Name]

Due date: Thursday, February 24, at 11:10am in section

Length: 5-6pp. double-spaced

Limiting your reading to the sourcebook, write a comparative analysis of Hobbes’s, Locke’s, and Marx’s conceptions of property.

The purpose of this assignment is to help you synthesize some difficult political theory and identify the profound differences among some key theorists.

The best papers will focus on a single shared aspect of the theorists’ respective political ideologies, such as how property is distributed, whether it should be owned, or what role it serves politically. The best papers will not only focus on a specific topic, but will state a clear and arguable thesis about it (“the three authors have differing conceptions of property” is neither) and go on to describe and assess the authors’ viewpoints clearly and concisely.

Note that this revised assignment is now not only clearer than the original; it also requires less regurgitation and more sustained thought.

For more information about crafting and staging your assignments, see “ The Papers We Want to Read ” by Linda Simon, Social Studies; Jan/Feb90, Vol. 81 Issue 1, p37, 3p. (The link to Simon’s article will only work if your computer is on the Yale campus.) See also the discussion of Revising Assignments in the section of this website on Addressing Plagiarism .

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Assignment Design

There’s a fine line between assignment design and assessment strategies . In short, designing good assignments is one means of assessing your students’ learning on a larger scale.

Assignments help measure student learning in your course. Effective assignment design in your course involves aligning your assignments with learning outcomes. When assignments and outcomes are aligned, good grades and good learning go hand in hand ( https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/assessments.html ).

Assessments fall into one of two categories, formative or summative .

Formative assessments are typically low-stakes and help students identify their strengths and weaknesses so that they can improve their learning. Routine formative assessments also help instructors identify the areas where students are struggling and adapt their teaching accordingly.

Summative assessments evaluate student learning (such as at the end of a unit of instruction). Summative assessments are generally higher stakes (like midterm exams and final projects).

Assignments are what students actually ‘do’ as part of those assessments.

Incorporating a mix of assignment activities in your course can help students practice and demonstrate their mastery of outcomes in multiple ways. Consider ways you can design your assignments so that they better mirror the application of knowledge in real-world scenarios. Assignments designed in this way are often referred to as Authentic Assessments ( Authentic-assessment.pdf (uwex.edu)). One type of highly authentic assessment is the long-term project which challenges students to solve a problem or complete a challenge requiring the application of course concepts ( Project_Based_Learning.pdf (uwex.edu) ).

More details and examples can be found in the tabbed content box below. Please also consider signing up for a CATL consultation with one of our instructional designers for some personalized assistance in developing your ideas for assignments and ensuring that they align with your course outcomes .

(Adapted from Carnegie Mellon's:  Design and Teach a Course )

Assessments should provide instructors and students with evidence of how well students have mastered the course outcomes.

There are two major reasons for aligning assessments with learning outcomes.

• Alignment increases the probability that we will provide students with the opportunities to learn and practice knowledge and skills that instructors will require students know in the objectives and in the assessments. (Teaching to the assessment is a  good  thing.)
• When instructors align assessments with outcomes, students are more likely to translate "good grades" into "good learning." Conversely, when instructors misalign assessments with objectives, students will focus on getting good grades on the assessments, rather than focusing on mastering the material that the instructor finds important.

Instructors may use different types of assessments to measure student proficiency in a learning objective. Moreover, instructors may use the same activity to measure different objectives. To ensure a more accurate assessment of student proficiency, many instructional designers recommend that you use different kinds of activities so that students have multiple ways to practice and demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

Formative assessment

The goal of formative assessment is to  monitor student learning  to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally  low stakes , which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

• draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic
• submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture
• turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to  evaluate student learning  at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often  high stakes , which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:

• a midterm exam
• a final project
• a senior recital

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

Formative Assessments:

• Reading quizzes
• Concept map
• Muddiest point
• Pro/con grid
• Focused paraphrasing
• Reflective journal
• Virtual lab/game
• Webconference
• Debate (synchronous or asynchronous)
• Participant research
• Peer review

Summative Assessments:

• Presentation
• Portfolio project

Carnegie Mellon University on Aligning Assessments with Objectives with examples.

Items to consider when weighing your assessment options:

If you are thinking about using discussions, be sure to think about the following:.

• What kind of questions/situations do you want the students to discuss? Is it complex enough to allow students to build knowledge beyond the textbook? Will the discussion help students meet your objectives (and develop an answer for your essential questions)?
• What are your expectations for discussions? Should students participate (post) a certain number of times, with a certain number of words, and reply to a certain number of people?
• What is your role in the discussion (traffic cop, the person who clarifies issues, will you respond to every post)?

If you are thinking about using quizzes, be sure to think about the following:

• What type of questions will help your students meet the objectives of the course? Are you going to grade essay questions or just let the computer grade multiple choice questions?
• What is the place for academic integrity? Are you going to randomize questions, randomize answers, restrict time, restrict the answers that students can see after completing the exam?
• How are you going to populate your quiz? Are you going to write the questions or use questions that come from a textbook publisher?

If you are thinking of using essays, be sure to think about the following:

• Will these essays/papers help students to meet the course objectives, which ones? Is the length of the essay appropriate?
• What do you think about plagiarism checkers such as TurnItIn?
• To what extent will you allow students to submit drafts, and will you provide feedback on drafts, or will you use a peer review system?

Other items to consider:

• Are you thinking about using an alternative assignment? If so, you may want to talk with an instructional technologist or designer.
• Consider the type of feedback you will provide for each assignment. What should students expect from you; how will you communicate those expectations; and how soon will you provide feedback (realistically)?

Further resources

Small teaching online.

This book (requires UWGB login) contains many tips that are easy to integrate into your distance education class. The chapter on “ surfacing backward design” contains many tips for assessment for online classes, many of which are adaptable to all distance modalities.

CATL Resources

• Collaborative Learning Assignments  (Toolbox article)
• Administering Tests and Quizzes (including alternatives) (Toolbox article)
• Writing Good Multiple Choice Questions ( TeAch Tuesday , YouTube)

Tip sheets from UW-System

UW-System put together some tip sheets for common sticking points in assessment for distance education.

• Writing effective multiple choice questions
• Authentic assessments
• Unproctored online assessments
• Project-based learning

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Transparent Assignment Design

The goal of Transparent Assignment Design is to “to make learning processes explicit and equally accessible for all students” (Winkelmes et al., 2019, p. 1). The development of a transparent assignment involves providing students with clarity on the purpose of the assignment, the tasks required, and criteria for success as shown in the figure below. The inclusion of these elements as well as the provision of examples can be beneficial in enabling your students to do their best work!

Example A: Sociology 

Example B: Science 101 

Example C: Psychology

Example D: Communications

Authors of Examples A-D describe the outcomes of their assignment revisions

Example E: Biology

Discussion Questions (about Examples A-E)

Example F: Library research Assignment

Example G: Criminal Justice In-Class activity

Example H: Criminal Justice Assignment

Example I: Political Science Assignment

Example J: Criteria for Math Writing

Example K – Environmental History

Example L – Calculus

Example M – Algebra

Example N – Finance

Transparent Assignments Promote Equitable Opportunities for Students’ Success Video Recording

Transparent Assignment Design Faculty Workshop Video Recording

• Transparent Assignment Template  for instructors (Word Document download)
• Checklist for Designing Transparent Assignments
• Assignment Cues  to use when designing an assignment (adapted from Bloom’s Taxonomy) for faculty
• Transparent Equitable Learning Readiness Assessment for Teachers
• Transparent Assignment Template for students  (to help students learn to parse assignments also to frame a conversation to gather feedback from your students about how to make assignments more transparent and relevant for them)
• Measuring Transparency: A Learning-focused Assignment Rubric  (Palmer, M., Gravett, E., LaFleur, J.)
• Transparent Equitable Learning Framework for Students  (to frame a conversation with students about how to make the purposes, tasks and criteria for class activities transparent and relevant for them)
• Howard, Tiffiany, Mary-Ann Winkelmes, and Marya Shegog. “ Transparency Teaching  in the Virtual Classroom: Assessing the Opportunities and Challenges of Integrating Transparency Teaching Methods with Online Learning.” Journal of Political Science Education, June 2019.
• Ou, J. (2018, June), Board 75 :  Work in Progress: A Study of Transparent Assignments and Their Impact on Students in an Introductory Circuit Course  Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Palmer, M. S., Gravett, E. O., & LaFleur, J. (2018).  Measuring transparency: A learning‐focused assignment rubric.  To Improve the Academy, 37(2), 173-187. doi:10.1002/tia2.20083
• Winkelmes, M., Allison Boye and Suzanne Tapp, ed.s. (2019).  Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership. Stylus Publishing.
• Humphreys, K., Winkelmes, M.A., Gianoutsos, D., Mendenhall, A., Fields, L.A., Farrar, E., Bowles-Terry, M., Juneau-Butler, G., Sully, G., Gittens, S. Cheek, D. (forthcoming 2018). Campus-wide Collaboration on Transparency in Faculty Development at a Minority-Serving Research University. In Winkelmes, Boye, Tapp, (Eds.),  Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership.
• Copeland, D.E., Winkelmes, M., & Gunawan, K. (2018).  Helping students by using transparent writing assignments.  In T.L. Kuther (Ed.), Integrating Writing into the College Classroom: Strategies for Promoting Student Skills, 26-37. Retrieved from the  Society for the Teaching of Psychology website.
• Winkelmes, Mary-Ann, Matthew Bernacki, Jeffrey Butler, Michelle Zochowski, Jennifer Golanics, and Kathryn Harriss Weavil. “A Teaching Intervention that Increases Underserved College Students’ Success.”Peer Review (Winter/Spring 2016).
• Transparency and Problem-Centered Learning. (Winter/Spring 2016) Peer Review vol.18, no. 1/2.b
• Winkelmes, Mary-Ann.  Small Teaching Changes, Big Learning Benefits.”  ACUE Community ‘Q’ Blog, December, 2016.
• Winkelmes, Mary-Ann.  “Helping Faculty Use Assessment Data to Provide More Equitable Learning Experiences.”  NILOA Guest Viewpoints. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, March 17, 2016.
• Gianoutsos, Daniel, and Mary-Ann Winkelmes.“Navigating with Transparency: Enhancing Underserved Student Success through Transparent Learning and Teaching in the Classroom and Beyond.” Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Association of Developmental Educators (Spring 2016).
• Sodoma, Brian.“The End of Busy Work.” UNLV Magazine 24,1 (Spring 2016): 16-19.
• Cook, Lisa and Daniel Fusch.  One Easy Way Faculty Can Improve Student Success.”  Academic Impressions (March 10, 2016).
• Head, Alison and Kirsten Hosteller.  “Mary-Ann Winkelmes: Transparency in Teaching and Learning,”  Project Information Literacy, Smart Talk Interview, no. 25.  Creative Commons License 3.0 :  2 September 2015.
• Winkelmes, Mary-Ann, et al. David E. Copeland, Ed Jorgensen, Alison Sloat, Anna Smedley, Peter Pizor, Katharine Johnson, and Sharon Jalene.  “Benefits (some unexpected) of Transparent Assignment Design.”   National Teaching and Learning Forum, 24, 4 (May 2015), 4-6.
• Winkelmes, Mary-Ann.  “Equity of Access and Equity of Experience in Higher Education.”  National Teaching and Learning Forum, 24, 2 (February 2015), 1-4.
• Cohen, Dov, Emily Kim, Jacinth Tan, Mary-Ann Winkelmes, “A Note-Restructuring Intervention Increases Students’ Exam Scores.”  College Teaching vol. 61, no. 3 (2013): 95-99.
• Winkelmes, Mary-Ann.”Transparency in Teaching: Faculty Share Data and Improve Students’ Learning.” Liberal Education Association of American Colleges and Universities (Spring 2013).
• Winkelmes, Mary-Ann.  “Transparency in Learning and Teaching: Faculty and students benefit directly from a shared focus on learning and teaching processes.”   NEA Higher Education Advocate (January 2013): 6 – 9.
• Bhavsar, Victoria Mundy. (2020). A Transparent Assignment to Encourage Reading for a Flipped Course, College Teaching, 68:1, 33-44, DOI:  10.1080/87567555.2019.1696740
• Bowles-Terry, Melissa, John C. Watts, Pat Hawthorne, and Patricia Iannuzzi. “ Collaborating with Teaching Faculty on Transparent Assignment Design .” In Creative Instructional Design: Practical Applications for Librarians, edited by Brandon K. West, Kimberly D. Hoffman, and Michelle Costello, 291–311. Atlanta: American Library Association, 2017.
• Leuzinger, Ryne and Grallo, Jacqui, “ Reaching First- Generation and Underrepresented Students through Transparent Assignment Design .” (2019). Library Faculty Publications and Presentations. 11.  https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/lib_fac/11
• Fuchs, Beth, “ Pointing a Telescope Toward the Night Sky: Transparency and Intentionality as Teaching Techniques ” (2018). Library Presentations. 188.  https://uknowledge.uky.edu/libraries_present/188
• Ferarri, Franca; Salis, Andreas; Stroumbakis, Kostas; Traver, Amy; and Zhelecheva, Tanya, “ Transparent Problem-Based Learning Across the Disciplines in the Community College Context: Issues and Impacts ” (2015).NERA Conference Proceedings 2015. 9.  https://opencommons.uconn.edu/nera-2015/9
• Milman, Natalie B.  Tips for Success: The Online Instructor’s (Short) Guide to Making Assignment Descriptions More Transparent . Distance Learning. Greenwich  Vol. 15, Iss. 4,  (2018): 65-67. 3
• Winkelmes, M. (2023).  Introduction to Transparency in Learning and Teaching.  Perspectives In Learning, 20 (1). Retrieved from  https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/pil/vol20/iss1/2
• Brown, J., et al. (2023). Perspectives in Learning: TILT Special Issue, 20 (1). Retrieved from  https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/pil/vol20/iss1/
• Winkelmes, M. (2022). “Assessment in Class Meetings: Transparency Reduces Systemic Inequities.” In Henning, G. W., Jankowski, N. A., Montenegro, E., Baker, G. R., & Lundquist, A. E. (Eds.). (2022). Reframing Assessment to Center Equity: Theories, Models, and Practices. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Citation : TILT Higher Ed © 2009-2023 by Mary-Ann Winkelmes . Retrieved from https://tilthighered.com/

This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

Assignment Design and Assessment

Assignments are a major part of pedagogy. Designing assignments can therefore be one of the most influential elements of classroom teaching. Thoughtful assignment design can support student learning by helping students practice meaningful tasks that carry on into their careers or across the curriculum.

The graphic below illustrates how assessment can provide a continuous process of planning, measuring, analyzing results, and using the results to make informed decisions that lead to improvements. Because learning is a process that is driven by the products it produces at each stage, it is important to think about how assignments are designed and assessed so that they can support student learning.

Below are several videos describing a range of assessment techniques:

Transparency in Assignments

Transparent assignments promote students’ conscious understanding of how they learn. Research from the Transparency in Teaching and Learning Project has shown that when students understand the task, its purpose, and the criteria for evaluating their work, they are more motivated. That doesn’t mean we don’t give students challenging work, rather, that we help them understand the struggles we design for them.

Our adaptation of Palmer’s transparent assignment template is a great tool for helping faculty think through how to make the learning process clear to students.

Click on the links below for exemplary assignments from a range of disciplines at UCF.

• Humanities Assignment
• Business Assignment
• Public Administration Assignment
• Public Speaking Assignment and Evaluation Sheet
• Biomedical Science Assignment and Peer Review Sheet
• General Group Project Assignment

More Information About Assessment

For information about UCF’s Academic Learning Compacts (ALCs), see Operational Excellence and Assessment Support .

Read more about providing students with effective feedback here: https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/instructors/teaching-resources/giving-feedback-on-student-writing.html

Creative Ways to Design Assignments for Student Success

There are many creative ways in which teachers can design assignments to support student success. We can do this while simultaneously not getting bogged down with the various obstructions that keep students from both completing and learning from the assignments. For me, assignments fall into two categories: those that are graded automatically, such as SmartBook® readings and quizzes in Connect®; and those that I need to grade by hand, such as writing assignments.  

For those of us teaching large, introductory classes, most of our assignments are graded automatically, which is great for our time management. But our students will ultimately deliver a plethora of colorful excuses as to why they were not completed and why extensions are warranted. How do we give them a little leeway to make the semester run more smoothly, so there are fewer worries about a reading that was missed or a quiz that went by too quickly? Here are a few tactics I use. 

Automatically graded assignments: 

Multiple assignment attempts  

• This eases the mental pressure of a timed assignment and covers computer mishaps or human error on the first attempt. 
• You can deduct points for every attempt taken if you are worried about students taking advantage. 

Automatically dropped assignments  

• Within a subset or set of assignments, automatically drop a few from grading. This can take care of all excuses for missing an assignment. 
• Additionally, you can give a little grade boost to those who complete all their assignments (over a certain grade). 

Due dates  

• Consider staggering due dates during the week instead of making them all due on Sunday night.  
• Set the due date for readings the night before you cover the material, so students are prepared.  

Requirements  

• If we want our students to read, then make a reading assignment a requirement of a quiz. 

The tactics above might be applied to written assignments, too. An easy way to bolster a student’s interest and investment in these longer assignments is to give them a choice. This could be in the topic, location of study, or presentation style. For example, if you want them to analyze the susceptibility of a beach to hurricane threat, why not let them choose the location? In this way, you will also be gaining a lot of new information for your own use. 

With a small amount of effort, we can design our classes, so students concentrate on learning the subject matter rather than the logistics of completing the assignments. 

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How Burnout Became Normal — and How to Push Back Against It

• Kandi Wiens

Seven strategies to get back to a healthy baseline.

Slowly but steadily, while we’ve been preoccupied with trying to meet demands that outstrip our resources, grappling with unfair treatment, or watching our working hours encroach upon our downtime, burnout has become the new baseline in many work environments. From the 40% of Gen Z workers who believe burnout is an inevitable part of success, to executives who believe high-pressure, “trial-by-fire” assignments are a required rite of passage, to toxic hustle culture that pushes busyness as a badge of honor, too many of us now expect to feel overwhelmed, over-stressed, and eventually burned out at work. When pressures are mounting and your work environment continues to be stressful, it’s all the more important to take proactive steps to return to your personal sweet spot of stress and remain there as long as you can. The author presents several strategies.

If we’re exposed to something repeatedly, it seems we can become desensitized to almost anything. An event that once evoked shock can come to seem routine; what once prompted alarm can eventually inspire no more than a shrug.

• Kandi Wiens , EdD, is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the author of the book Burnout Immunity : How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Build Resilience and Heal Your Relationship with Work (HarperCollins, 2024). A nationally known researcher and speaker on burnout, emotional intelligence, and resilience, she developed the Burnout Quiz to help people understand if they’re at risk of burning out.

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