4. Developing Assignment Instructions
Purpose & Description
The purpose and description of the assignment are key components of the assignment instructions that guide students in successfully completing the assessment. Knowing why a task is required is a motivating factor (CAST, 2018) and also helps students focus their efforts strategically.
Strategies for Success
- The purpose of the assignment should be clear and concise. Why are students being asked to complete this particular assignment for this course? How does it connect to course learning outcomes?
- Clearly articulate the skills and knowledge practices that students will gain. What will they learn by completing the project?
- In your description, include details about the:
- Format: What will students create (e.g., research essay, annotated bibliography)?
- Rhetorical Situation: What ‘role’ should the student play (e.g., researcher, practitioner, instructor)? Who is their audience (e.g., colleague, peers, instructor)? What is the purpose of the communication (e.g., to explain, inform, promote)?
- Tasks: What steps will students need to take to complete the assignment?
- Avoid over-complicating your instructions.
- Ask a colleague (preferably from a different discipline) or a librarian to read over your instructions and point out any areas that require clarification.
Academic Integrity Strategies: Choose formats and tasks that are not easily reproducible by artificial intelligence, course-sharing sites, or other readily-available tools.
Indigenization Strategies: Provide opportunities for students to visualize their learning (e.g., through exhibits, artistic performances, symbolic illustrations, etc.) or demonstrate their learning orally. Incorporate opportunities to reflect on personal experiences and current skills and knowledge. Consult with an Indigenous learning strategist at your institution to discuss culturally-appropriate assessment methodologies for your context and learning outcomes.
Universal Design Strategies: Offer a variety of choices to students regarding the format, tasks, or other aspects of the assignment, where possible.
Example Formats and Tasks
The following list describes common research assessment formats and tasks. Search journal articles and websites to find specific examples of how other educators have implemented these strategies in their own courses.
Assessment Formats
Students may present their research findings in any format, or a combination of formats.
| Essay or Position Paper | Students develop a written argument based on their research findings. |
|---|---|
| Annotated Bibliography | Students present a list of resources on their topic, write a summary and evaluation of the content, as well as an explanation for why they chose the resource. |
| Literature Review | Students conduct an extensive search of the scholarly literature and then describe findings from key research articles. |
| Research Proposal | Students complete a full description of their research project, including research questions, methods, and related literature. |
| Abstract | Students write a short summary that describes their own original research proposal, or that of a published research article. |
| Report | Students provide a summary of key facts on a topic. Often includes visual elements (e.g., graphs and images) as well as elements to support scanning (e.g., headings, bullet-points). |
| Anthology | Students create a “mini” anthology or course pack, either collaboratively or individually, complete with an introduction, excerpts, and a short analysis of each work. |
| Presentation |
Students present their research findings to an audience. Usually delivered verbally, either live or recorded, with accompanying slides or other multi-media. |
| Debate | Teams are pitted against each other in a debate-style presentation where students read pre-written arguments based on research findings. Class votes on the most convincing team. |
| Research Diary (Log/Reflection) |
Students keep a record of their research activities, including search tools used, keywords, databases, expertise consulted, sources selected, etc., and reflect on challenges and successes through the research process. |
| Visual Representation or Artistic Performance | Students collect information about their topic and summarize and organize the information as an artistic performance (e.g., dance, song, vignette) or within a visual representation (e.g., timeline, graph, image). |
| Authentic, Active, Digital, or Problem-based Activities |
|
Research Tasks
These research tasks could be used as formative or summative activities. Student responses may be presented informally or formally in a written, verbal, or visual format, depending on the activity and your goals for the assessment.
| Un-research paper | Students write a paper without doing any research or citations. Then, they conduct research to find sources that either (a) support a claim/point in the paper they wrote, (b) bring a new point to the paper, (c) contradict a point made in the paper, or (d) enhances the paper. (e.g., Hosier, 2015) |
|---|---|
| Everything but the Paper | Students conduct all of the research and complete key steps of a research paper, but do not write the final draft, creating time for in-depth study into the different components of the research process. |
| Article Analysis | Students summarize an article and identify the assumptions, thesis and research methods, or other elements of a single article. |
| Annotate an Article | Students create margin notes and annotations for an article using digital tools (e.g., Hypothesis[1]). Groups or the entire class could annotate one article. Alternatively, students could annotate an article individually with a novice reader in mind. It may be helpful for them to envision someone specific, such as a younger sibling, a grandparent, etc. |
| Source Comparison | Students compare multiple articles of the same type (e.g., literature review articles, websites) to develop a list of similar attributes or evaluate for quality, bias, or other criteria. |
| Source Contrast | Students compare multiple resources of differing type (e.g., literature review vs. original research, primary vs. secondary sources) to identify key characteristics of each, to determine how each type contributes to the topic in differing ways, or to evaluate quality, bias, or other criteria. Articles on related topics work best. Combine with an article analysis for each type of source to extend and enrich the activity. |
| Fact-Checking | Students take a recent newspaper or magazine article and find sources that support or refute claims made in the article. |
| Update your Facts |
Students take a newspaper or magazine article from 10+ years ago and identify more recent scholarly articles that present new findings related to claims made in the original article. |
| Find the Original Research | Students locate the original scholarly journal article referenced in a newspaper or magazine article. Evaluate the usage of the scholarly article in the popular source and compare the authorship, content, format, and conclusions of the two articles to highlight differences in popular and scholarly sources. |
| Evolving Conversation | Select a topic and provide students with literature that discusses the topic from 2 different time periods. Have students discuss how the treatment of the topic has changed over time. |
| Citation Chaining/ Tracking | Students trace an important or controversial paper or topic through citation chaining and reflect on the importance of citation, how consensus is developed, and/or the influence of a particular author or paper within the discipline. Textbooks may offer a good starting point. |
| Trace a Scholar’s Career | Students find articles by prominent scholars and trace how their ideas change over time. |
| Compare Disciplines | Students compare the treatment of the same topic in scholarly articles from two different disciplines. |
| Student Expert | Students read different articles assigned by the instructor or find and read background information on a topic or task related to course curriculum. In class discussions, or during group assignments, students are deferred to as the expert in that article/topic/task. |
| Case Study Analysis |
Students analyze a real-world case to determine appropriate course of action, describe key concepts involved, etc. |
Helpful Resources
- Transparency In Learning and Teaching Project[2]
Provides example assignments with excellent purpose and task statements. - Bloom’s Taxonomy (University of Waterloo) [PDF][3]
Categorizes useful verbs for describing cognitive skills. Useful for developing purpose statements. - ACRL Framework[4]
Outlines knowledge practices and dispositions for key information literacy concepts. Useful for developing purpose statements. - UDL Guidelines: Action & Expression[5]
Provides recommendations for activities and tools that support universal design.
- Hypothesis: https://web.hypothes.is/ ↵
- Transparency in Learning and Teaching Project: https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources ↵
- Bloom's Taxonomy: https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/sites/default/files/uploads/files/cognitive_domain_-_blooms_taxonomy.pdf ↵
- ACRL Framework: https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework ↵
- UDL: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/action-expression ↵
