Benefits of Assignment Design

Thoughtfully designed assignments enhance engagement, promote deeper understanding, and provide valuable feedback for both students and instructors.

Students

• Enhanced Learning: Well-designed assignments provide opportunities for students to practice, rehearse, and apply what they've learned, leading to deeper understanding and retention.  
• Increased Engagement: When assignments are aligned with course goals and unit objectives, students see the connections and its value. They are more likely to be engaged and believe they can success and put forward their best effort.   
• Clear Expectations: Transparent assignments, with clear instructions and evaluation criteria, help students understand what is expected of them and how their work will be assessed.  
• Development of Skills: Assignments designed to foster critical thinking and problem-solving are valuable skills that will be used in both academic and professional settings.
• Building Confidence: Assignments provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in meaningful ways.

For Instructors: 

• Assessment of Learning Objectives: Assignments provide direct evidence of student learning, by assessing achievement of the learning objectives.
• Feedback for Continuous Improvement: Assignment design enables instructors to provide feedback to students, helping them to reflect on their work and improve their understanding and performance.
• Course Improvement: By reviewing student work on assignments, instructors can identify areas where the course may need some changes.
• Authentic Assessment: Assignments should be designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate, in an authentic manner, that they have achieved the objectives and are able to apply the knowledge and skills they have gained.

Transparent Assignment Design

Transparent assignment design was first developed by the Transparency in Learning & Teaching (TILT) project. Transparency in teaching key points includes clearly communicating the purpose, task, and criteria, into all aspects of teaching. Applying this to assignment design helps students to understand how their work connects to the unit objectives and course goals. 

• Design assignments using a roadmap layout with where to start and steps along the way. This provides students with a greater opportunity for successfully meeting the expectations of the assignment.
• This method benefits all students. In particular, research has shown it to benefit underrepresented student groups, in terms of achievement, retention and graduation rates, and students’ confidence and sense of belonging.
• Transparency can clear up the perceived mystery surrounding much of the learning process for students who may be less familiar with college success strategies.
• Redesigning assignments using this method provides faculty with opportunities for reflection on their assignments and how they meet student objectives.

The design of TILT’s Transparent assignment begins with developing a clear purpose aligned with learning objectives. Included in the purpose are skills and knowledge that will be learned and used. Next section of designing the assignment involves defining the tasks, what actions the students must take. Finalizing the design with defining the criteria for success, what will the finished product look like. Include sharing examples of successful work.

Download the Transparent Assignment Template for Teachers and many more resources from TILT Higher Ed Examples and Resources, bottom of the page – Tools for Teachers. 

Tips/Best Practice

• Use the TILT Transparent Assignment template to design your assignment in Word, copy and paste into the Assignment tool in Blackboard Ultra.
• Re-design an assignment and ask a colleague (can be helpful if the colleague is not in your area, so they view it as an incoming student) to provide feedback.
• What are the parts of an assignment that students always misunderstand? Think about providing examples, ask the students what is missing, gathering their feedback will help.
• Are the tasks clearly defined with action verbs (Bloom’s Taxonomy)?
• Ask a student to record how they got started on the assignment and provide the recording to students next semester. This helps current students hear and see what another student did in a previous semester.

Readings and Articles

• How Do I Create Meaningful and Effective Assignments? – Texas Tech Teaching, Learning & Professional Development Center, Prepared by Allison Boye, Ph.D.
• How to Write an Effective Assignment – The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.
• Transparent Design with Mary-Ann Winkelmas – interview with Mary-Ann Winkelmas about connections that her TILT Higher Ed method has with the Universal Design for Learning principles.

Related Resources

• Instructional Design Services