Assignments

Learning logs are records of student learning or insights that grow out of personal reflection, or both

Learning Logs

We’ve chosen to finish up our series on assignments with information on learning logs. Like the innovative and interesting assignments we plan to continue highlighting, learning logs are versatile and can be used to accomplish a range of learning out comes.

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Afterthoughts - student reflection assignments

Afterthoughts: An Assignment that Gets Students Thinking

Our March installment in the collection of materials on assignments included an assignment template we proposed could be used as part of the assignment design process. We used the template to describe an assignment in which students read the syllabus and responded to it in

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assignment template promotes clarity

A Template for Assignment Development and Clarity

For our next installment in this series on assignments, we’d like to share an assignment template that we think can be helpful to teachers and students. Let’s start with how it can help teachers. It’s no surprise that we think many teachers could do a

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assignment details - too many

Assignment Details: What if You Provide Too Many?

In an era of hyper-focus on students’ academic performance, is it possible that schoolwork is actually too easy? I recognize that this might seem a strange question, given how much we hear of stressed-out students, slogging through hours of homework and blizzards of standardized tests.

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assignment details - too few

Assignment Details: What if You Provide Too Few?

I am thankful for Jennifer Trainor’s insightful “Assignment Details: What if You Provide Too Many?” She raises what should be a real concern for teaching professors: Am I doing too much for my students? In other words, are teachers compromising student learning when we compose

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students confused over assignment

What Happens When an Assignment Is Unclear?

This installment of our continuing series on assignments is devoted to assignment clarity. We believe that many good assignments fall short of achieving what faculty expect because students struggle to understand what they are to do and why they are doing it. The assignment description

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I don't understand what you want in this assignment

“I Don’t Understand What You Want in This Assignment”

We’re interested in assignments. To us, they seem like a vital aspect of instruction that goes largely unexamined. What sparked our interest was the way students so often respond to written assignments: “What do you want?” or “I don’t understand what you want in this

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using assignments effectively

Assignments: A Theme for the Coming Semester

One of the luxuries of this online format that we didn’t have when The Teaching Professor was a print publication is the ability to pursue topics more thoroughly, to come at them from different directions, and to assemble collections of resources related to them. We

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building transparency into assignments

Building Transparency into Our Assignments

In education, transparency is typically described as making teaching and learning visible. “Transparent teaching involves making the implicit explicit for students so they understand why they are engaged in certain tasks and what role the course plays in their learning journey,” according to a recent

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