Supplemental Resources: Supporting Student Learning
Designing Effective Assessments
Page Navigation: Communicating Assignment Goals & Expectations | Designing Effective Writing Assignments | Developing Assessment Criteria
Communicating Assignment Goals & Expectations
The TILT (Transparency in Learning and Teaching) Framework
The TILT framework is an excellent tool for designing clear and student-centered assignments. In a nutshell, the framework provides ways for instructors to make sure they have communicated a clear purpose, task, and performance criteria for their students, something that can tap into student motivation, clarify expectations, and increase student self-efficacy. The creators are also engaged in a longer-term research study to identify the framework’s effectiveness.
A good place to start would be to visit the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) Assignment Design Examples and Resources page. This includes a smorgasbord of literature about how and why the framework was designed. It also includes a series of example assignments at stages before and after faculty have implemented the framework.
- A forewarning for those who dislike auto-playing website audio: the site has a message from the TILT project’s PI that plays when you click the link.
Key documents:
Designing Effective Writing Assignments
The UW-Madison Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Sourcebook
The UW-Madison Writing Center’s WAC Faculty Sourcebook includes guidance for faculty and a series of creative, thoughtfully-designed assignments composed by faculty at UW-Madison. It’s an excellent place to go for guidance and examples.
Additional Resources
- Formal Writing Assignments – (Link opens in a new tab & requires a UW-Madison login) – John Bean, Engaging Ideas Ch. 6.
- Designing and Sequencing Assignments to Teach Undergraduate Research – (Link opens in a new tab & requires a UW-Madison login) – John Bean, Engaging Ideas Ch. 13.
Developing Assessment Criteria
- Using Rubrics to Develop and Apply Grading Criteria- (Link opens in a new tab & requires a UW-Madison login) – John Bean, Engaging Ideas Ch. 14.
