Assignments

“The design of assignments, that is, the actions required to complete them, shapes the learning that results. We know this, but do we make the most of what we know when we design and select assignments?” (Welmir, 2015).

Read the following blog post:

6 reasons it’s important to create your own online assessments

Online assessment saves teachers’ time.
It makes student thinking visible.
It allows teachers to quickly make instructional decisions.
It establishes a record of student progress for more meaningful conversations.
It helps us better address students’ needs across the performance spectrum.
It develops test-taking skills for PARCC and other high stakes tests.

How Assignment Design Shapes Student Learning

Students appear to be overall more likely to take greater intellectual risks in blogs, which they know will be read and commented on by their peers. Conversely, journals–the more private option–compel students to be vulnerable and take more personal risks in their reflections.”

Creating Effective Assignments

To align your assignments with the state or provincial standards, you should strive to do the following (Dougherty, 2012, p. 13):

Teach literacy skills in all content areas.
Teach students to comprehend and critique a variety of texts and ideas.
Write prompts that ask students to write or orally explain in response to reading.
Include speaking and listening as a means of comprehending and communicating.
Expect that students will use and write language to communicate appropriately for an audience and a purpose.
Require evidence from texts and credible sources.
Create opportunities for students to use and manage technology to learn and produce their own products.
Write instructional plans that document and plot the teaching that transforms an assignment into learning.

Designing Effective Online Assignments by Todd Gilman (March 22, 2010)

Todd Gilman (librarian for literature in English at Yale University Library) does not believe in online quizzes because he thinks the students are cheating by having a book open or someone passing them the answers. I DO use online quizzes to make sure the students understand the concepts that can be found in the content of my course. I also allow students to complete the online quizzes as many times as they wish.

Todd Gilman gives the following suggestions for online assignments:

enable students to learn independently
grant extensions if requested in advance of a due date
force students to work in groups
the work can be completed by each student on his or her own
direct them where to look for information
post models of selected assignments so students can see what you consider to be good work

Designing successful online assignments: 10 tips by Jakko van der Pol

“…designing effective online assignments consists for a large part of motivating your students to invest this effort and to engage in productive interaction.” van der Pol has the following 10 suggestions for designing successful online assignments: