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AI Teaching Strategies: Transparent Assignment Design

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Jasper Chat raises many questions about the ways we teach and the ways students learn. While some of these questions concern how we can use AI to accomplish learning goals and whether or not that is advisable, others relate to how we can facilitate critical analysis of AI itself. 

The wide variety of questions about AI and the rapidly changing landscape of available tools can make it hard for educators to know where to start when designing an assignment. When confronted with new technologies—and the new teaching challenges they present—we can often turn to existing evidence-based practices for the guidance we seek.

This guide will apply the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework to "un-complicate" planning an assignment that uses AI, providing guiding questions for you to consider along the way. 

The result should be an assignment that supports you and your students to approach the use of AI in a more thoughtful, productive, and ethical manner.    

Plan your assignment.

The TILT framework offers a straightforward approach to assignment design that has been shown to improve academic confidence and success, sense of belonging, and metacognitive awareness by making the learning process clear to students (Winkelmes et al., 2016). The TILT process centers around deciding—and then communicating—three key components of your assignment: 1) purpose, 2) tasks, and 3) criteria for success. 

Step 1: Define your purpose.

To make effective use of any new technology, it is important to reflect on our reasons for incorporating it into our courses. In the first step of TILT, we think about what we want students to gain from an assignment and how we will communicate that purpose to students.

The  SAMR model , a useful tool for thinking about educational technology use in our courses, lays out four tiers of technology integration. The tiers, roughly in order of their sophistication and transformative power, are S ubstitution, A ugmentation, M odification, and R edefinition. Each tier may suggest different approaches to consider when integrating AI into teaching and learning activities. 

Questions to consider:

• Do you intend to use AI as a substitution, augmentation, modification, or redefinition of an existing teaching practice or educational technology?
• What are your learning goals and expected learning outcomes?
• Do you want students to understand the limitations of AI or to experience its applications in the field? 
• Do you want students to reflect on the ethical implications of AI use?  

Bloom’s Taxonomy is another useful tool for defining your assignment’s purpose and your learning goals and outcomes. 

This downloadable Bloom’s Taxonomy Revisited resource , created by Oregon State University, highlights the differences between AI capabilities and distinctive human skills at each Bloom's level, indicating the types of assignments you should review or change in light of AI. Bloom's Taxonomy Revisited is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).  

Access a transcript of the graphic .

Step 2: Define the tasks involved.

In the next step of TILT, you list the steps students will take when completing the assignment. In what order should they do specific tasks, what do they need to be aware of to perform each task well, and what mistakes should they avoid? Outlining each step is especially important if you’re asking students to use generative AI in a limited manner. For example, if you want them to begin with generative AI but then revise, refine, or expand upon its output, make clear which steps should involve their own thinking and work as opposed to AI’s thinking and work.

• Are you designing this assignment as a single, one-time task or as a longitudinal task that builds over time or across curricular and co-curricular contexts?  For longitudinal tasks consider the experiential learning cycle (Kolb, 1984) . In Kolb’s cycle, learners have a concrete experience followed by reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. For example, students could record their generative AI prompts, the results, a reflection on the results, and the next prompt they used to get improved output. In subsequent tasks students could expand upon or revise the AI output into a final product. Requiring students to provide a record of their reflections, prompts, and results can create an “AI audit trail,” making the task and learning more transparent.
• What resources and tools are permitted or required for students to complete the tasks involved with the assignment? Make clear which steps should involve their own thinking (versus AI-generated output, for example), required course materials, and if references are required. Include any ancillary resources students will need to accomplish tasks, such as guidelines on how to cite AI , in APA 7.0 for example.
• How will you offer students flexibility and choice? As of this time, most generative AI tools have not been approved for use by Ohio State, meaning they have not been  vetted for security, privacy, or accessibility issues . It is known that many platforms are not compatible with screen readers, and there are outstanding questions as to what these tools do with user data. Students may have understandable apprehensions about using these tools or encounter barriers to doing so successfully. So while there may be value in giving students first-hand experience with using AI, it’s important to give them the choice to opt out. As you outline your assignment tasks, plan how to provide alternative options to complete them. Could you provide AI output you’ve generated for students to work with, demonstrate use of the tool during class, or allow use of another tool that enables students to meet the same learning outcomes.

Microsoft Copilot is currently the only generative AI tool that has been vetted and approved for use at Ohio State. As of February 2024, the Office of Technology and Digital Innovation (OTDI) has enabled it for use by students, faculty, and staff. Copilot is an AI chatbot that draws from public online data, but with additional security measures in place. For example, conversations within the tool aren’t stored. Learn more and stay tuned for further information about Copilot in the classroom.

• What are your expectations for academic integrity? This is a helpful step for clarifying your academic integrity guidelines for this assignment, around AI use specifically as well as for other resources and tools. The standard Academic Integrity Icons in the table below can help you call out what is permissible and what is prohibited. If any steps for completing the assignment require (or expressly prohibit) AI tools, be as clear as possible in highlighting which ones, as well as why and how AI use is (or is not) permitted.

Promoting academic integrity

While inappropriate use of AI may constitute academic misconduct, it can be muddy for students to parse out what is permitted or prohibited across their courses and across various use cases. Fortunately, there are existing approaches to supporting academic integrity that apply to AI as well as to any other tool. Discuss academic integrity openly with students, early in the term and before each assignment. Purposefully design your assignments to promote integrity by using real-world formats and audiences, grading the process as well as the product, incorporating personal reflection tasks, and more. 

Learn about taking a proactive, rather than punitive, approach to academic integrity in A Positive Approach to Academic Integrity.

Step 3: Define criteria for success.

An important feature of transparent assignments is that they make clear to students how their work will be evaluated. During this TILT step, you will define criteria for a successful submission—consider creating a  rubric to clarify these expectations for students and simplify your grading process. If you intend to use AI as a substitute or augmentation for another technology, you might be able to use an existing rubric with little or no change. However, if AI use is modifying or redefining the assignment tasks, a new grading rubric will likely be needed. 

• How will you grade this assignment? What key criteria will you assess? 
• What indicators will show each criterion has been met? 
• What qualities distinguish a successful submission from one that needs improvement? 
• Will you grade students on the product only or on aspects of the process as well? For example, if you have included a reflection task as part of the assignment, you might include that as a component of the final grade.

Alongside your rubric, it is helpful to prepare examples of successful (and even unsuccessful) submissions to provide more tangible guidance to students. In addition to samples of the final product, you could share examples of effective AI prompts, reflections tasks, and AI citations. Examples may be drawn from previous student work or models that you have mocked up, and they can be annotated to highlight notable elements related to assignment criteria. 

Present and discuss your assignment.

As clear as we strive to be in our assignment planning and prompts, there may be gaps or confusing elements we have overlooked. Explicitly going over your assignment instructions—including the purpose, key tasks, and criteria—will ensure students are equipped with the background and knowledge they need to perform well. These discussions also offer space for students to ask questions and air unanticipated concerns, which is particularly important given the potential hesitance some may have around using AI tools. 

• How will this assignment help students learn key course content, contribute to the development of important skills such as critical thinking, or support them to meet your learning goals and outcomes? 
• How might students apply the knowledge and skills acquired in their future coursework or careers? 
• In what ways will the assignment further students’ understanding and experience around generative AI tools, and why does that matter?
• What questions or barriers do you anticipate students might encounter when using AI for this assignment?

As noted above, many students are unaware of the accessibility, security, privacy, and copyright concerns associated with AI, or of other pitfalls they might encounter working with AI tools. Openly discussing AI’s limitations and the inaccuracies and biases it can create and replicate will support students to anticipate barriers to success on the assignment, increase their digital literacy, and make them more informed and discerning users of technology. 

Explore available resources It can feel daunting to know where to look for AI-related assignment ideas, or who to consult if you have questions. Though generative AI is still on the rise, a growing number of useful resources are being developed across the teaching and learning community. Consult our other Teaching Topics, including AI Considerations for Teaching and Learning , and explore other recommended resources such as the Learning with AI Toolkit and Exploring AI Pedagogy: A Community Collection of Teaching Reflections.

If you need further support to review or develop assignment or course plans in light of AI, visit our Help forms to request a teaching consultation .

Using the Transparent Assignment Template

Sample assignment: ai-generated lesson plan.

In many respects, the rise of generative AI has reinforced existing best practices for assignment design—craft a clear and detailed assignment prompt, articulate academic integrity expectations, increase engagement and motivation through authentic and inclusive assessments. But AI has also encouraged us to think differently about how we approach the tasks we ask students to undertake, and how we can better support them through that process. While it can feel daunting to re-envision or reformat our assignments, AI presents us with opportunities to cultivate the types of learning and growth we value, to help students see that value, and to grow their critical thinking and digital literacy skills. 

Using the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework to plan assignments that involve generative AI can help you clarify expectations for students and take a more intentional, productive, and ethical approach to AI use in your course. 

• Step 1: Define your purpose. Think about what you want students to gain from this assignment. What are your learning goals and outcomes? Do you want students to understand the limitations of AI, see its applications in your field, or reflect on its ethical implications? The SAMR model and Bloom's Taxonomy are useful references when defining your purpose for using (or not using) AI on an assignment.
• Step 2: Define the tasks involved. L ist the steps students will take to complete the assignment. What resources and tools will they need? How will students reflect upon their learning as they proceed through each task?  What are your expectations for academic integrity?
• Step 3: Define criteria for success. Make clear to students your expectations for success on the assignment. Create a  rubric to call out key criteria and simplify your grading process. Will you grade the product only, or parts of the process as well? What qualities indicate an effective submission? Consider sharing tangible models or examples of assignment submissions.

Finally, it is time to make your assignment guidelines and expectations transparent to students. Walk through the instructions explicitly—including the purpose, key tasks, and criteria—to ensure they are prepared to perform well.

• Checklist for Designing Transparent Assignments
• TILT Higher Ed Information and Resources

Winkelmes, M. (2013). Transparency in Teaching: Faculty Share Data and Improve Students’ Learning. Liberal Education 99 (2).

Wilkelmes, M. (2013). Transparent Assignment Design Template for Teachers. TiLT Higher Ed: Transparency in Learning and Teaching. https://tilthighered.com/assets/pdffiles/Transparent%20Assignment%20Templates.pdf

Winkelmes, M., Bernacki, M., Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., Weavil, K. (2016). A Teaching Intervention that Increases Underserved College Students’ Success. Peer Review.

Related Teaching Topics

Ai considerations for teaching and learning, ai teaching strategies: having conversations with students, designing assessments of student learning, search for resources.

Strategies for Effective Assignment Design

As students progress through their degree programs, it becomes increasingly important for them to learn the major genres, research strategies, and writing conventions of their field. Because writing expectations vary across disciplinary and professional contexts, students benefit from transparent explanation of what those expectations are, how to achieve them, and why they’re important. This can be accomplished through carefully designed formal assignments.

Experts in Writing across the Curriculum argue that students learn most successfully when formal assignments engage them with “authentic research projects that promote disciplinary ways of inquiry and argument and are written in real disciplinary genres. [1]  from the National Survey of Student Engagement shows that deep learning depends less on the amount of writing assigned in a course than on the design of the writing assignments themselves. According to this and other research, effective assignments have the following three features: [2]  a meaning-constructing task, clear explanations of expectations, and interactive components.

Engage students in meaning-making

A meaning-constructing task asks students to bring their own critical thinking to bear on problems that matter to both the writer and the intended audience. A meaning-constructing task typically presents students with a disciplinary problem, asks them to formulate their own problems, or otherwise engages them in active critical thinking in a specific rhetorical context.

Provide clear expectations

Effective assignments clearly present the instructor’s expectations for a successful performance. Ideally, the assignment prompt also explains the purpose of the assignment in terms of the course’s learning goals and presents the instructor’s evaluation criteria.

Include interactive components

Interactive activities situate writing as a process of inquiry and discovery, promote productive talk about the writer’s emerging ideas, and encourage multiple drafts and global revision.

Create a Rhetorical Context

Creating a rhetorical context for your assignments means considering the role students will play in their writing, the audience they are meant to address, the format (or genre) of the writing task, and the task they are meant to accomplish. The mnemonic RAFT is helpful to recall these four components. [3]

Having a role helps students understand the kind of change they hope to bring about in their audience’s view of the subject matter. Without a specific role to play other than “student,” writers in your class might assume that their purpose is simply to regurgitate information to the instructor.

Specifying an audience goes hand-in-hand with establishing the student’s role. By identifying an audience, the instructor can help students see how their writing might influence a reader’s stance.

Format/Genre

By specifying a genre (e.g., experimental report, op-ed piece, proposal), the assignment helps students transfer earlier genre knowledge to the current task and make decisions about document design, organization, and style. It also helps instructors clarify expectations about length, citation style, etc. More important still, the rhetorical awareness enabled by writing in a specific genre also creates an awareness of a discourse community at work. To students, college writing assignments often appear to be an isolated transaction between student and teacher. Students assume that strange features of the assignment reflect the idiosyncrasies of the instructor rather than the conventions of a larger community. When instructors assign authentic genres there is an opportunity to make discourse community values and expectations explicit.

Task (Problem-Focused)

The task itself sets forth the subject matter of the assignment. Unlike topic-focused tasks (e.g., research/write about X), which can lead to unfocused papers that merely report information, a truly engaging task is typically embedded in disciplinary “problems” and disciplinary ways of thinking and argumentation. A problem-focused task should give students agency to bring their own critical thinking to bear on the subject matter—that is, to engage them in making their own meaning.

Use Transparent Assignment Design

Often an assignment that seems clear to you can be confusing to your students. While designing your assignments, ask yourself what might be unclear to your students—what assumptions might you be making about their procedural or background knowledge? Scholar Mary Ann Winkelmas

Align writing activities and assignments clearly with learning objectives

The goal of transparent assignment design is to “to make learning processes explicit and equally accessible for all students” (winkelmes et al., 2019, p. 1)., make clear the purpose, task, and criteria for success., for more information visit tilt (transparency in teaching and learning).

Example: Less Transparent

Assignment from an Introductory Communications Course

1. Select a professional in your prospective academic discipline and/or career filed that is considered an expert in an area in which you are interested 2. Secure an interview with the professional for a date and time that is convenient for both of you. 3. Prepare 8-10 questions to ask the professional about their knowledge of a particular academic discipline/career field. 4. Conduct a 20-30 minute, face-to-face interview to gather knowledge that will help you make an informed decision about the major/career you are considering. You will want to audio/video record the interview with the interviewee’s permission 5. Prepare a typed transcript of the questions and answers using the audio/ video recording 6. Write a 400-500 word reflection paper in which you address the following items: a. Who you selected and why? b. What you learned from them that is most interesting? c. What this assignment helped you learn about your major/career decision? 7. What questions you still have? 8. Submit the typed transcript and reflection paper to your instructor

Revised EXAMPLE: More Transparent

Communications 100E, Interview Assignment Used by permission of Katharine Johnson, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Due dates: - Sept 30 - Draft interview questions - October 15 - Transcript of interviews - November 17 - Report

Purpose : The purpose of this assignment is to help you make an informed decision about the major/career you are considering.

Skills : This assignment will help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in school and professional life: - Accessing and collecting information from appropriate primary and secondary sources - Synthesizing information to develop informed views - Composing a well-organized, clear, concise report to expand your knowledge on a subject in your major.

Knowledge : This assignment will also help you to become familiar with the following important content knowledge in this discipline: - Issues facing professionals in a field - Scholarly research formats for documenting sources and creating reference pages (i.e., bibliographies).

Task : To complete this assignment you should: 1. Secure an interview with two professionals in hour prospective academic discipline and/or career field who are considered experts. 2. Schedule the interviews with the professionals at a date and time that is convenient for both of you. 3. Prepare 8-10 questions to ask the professionals about their expertise in a particular academic or career field. The questions must be based on a review of the filed using 5 credible sources as defined by the librarian in our research module. Sources should be cited using APA formatting. 4. Conduct a 2 -3 -minute, face-to-face interview with each professional to gather knowledge that will help you make an informed decision about the major/career you are considering. You will want to audio/video record the interview with the interviewee’s permission. 5. Prepare a typed transcript of the interviews 6. Compare and contrast the information provided by both professionals in an 8-page (1.5 spaced, 12point Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins) report that documents the advantages and disadvantages of a career in the selected field.

Criteria for success : Please see the attached rubric.Type your textbox content here.

Information Literacy Skills Needed for Research Writing

Asking students to engage authentic, discipline-specific problems requires a kind of dismantling of the commonly encountered “research paper” culture in which students think of research as going to the library to find sources that can be summarized, paraphrased, and quoted. To move from “research paper” culture to a culture in which research projects are written in disciplinary genres, instructors need to help students develop the following skills related to information literacy: [4]

Click "next" in the bottom right corner to continue reading this chapter.

Consider the Novice-Expert Framework

Consider backward design.

• Bean and Melzer, p. 64-65 ↵
• All of this section excerpted and paraphrased from Bean and Melzer, pp. 66-68 ↵
• All of this section excerpted and paraphrased from Bean and Melzer, pp. 200-202 ↵
• Bizup, Joseph. “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing.” Rhetoric Review, 2008, Vol.27 (1), p.72-86. DOI: 10.1080/07350190701738858 ↵

Locally Sourced: Writing Across the Curriculum Sourcebook Copyright © by [email protected] is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Teaching Commons > Teaching Guides > Assignment Design

Assignment Design

Here's a short list of some general assignment design strategies that apply to a wide variety of disciplines.

A number of strategies for deterring plagiarism are discussed, including asking your students to write about current topics relevant to your course and staging essay assignments throughout the quarter.

​Integrative learning occurs when students make connections among ideas and experiences in order to transfer learning to new contexts.​

Assignment Design and Assessment

Assignments are a major part of pedagogy. Designing assignments can therefore be one of the most influential elements of classroom teaching. Thoughtful assignment design can support student learning by helping students practice meaningful tasks that carry on into their careers or across the curriculum.

The graphic below illustrates how assessment can provide a continuous process of planning, measuring, analyzing results, and using the results to make informed decisions that lead to improvements. Because learning is a process that is driven by the products it produces at each stage, it is important to think about how assignments are designed and assessed so that they can support student learning.

Below are several videos describing a range of assessment techniques:

Transparency in Assignments

Transparent assignments promote students’ conscious understanding of how they learn. Research from the Transparency in Teaching and Learning Project has shown that when students understand the task, its purpose, and the criteria for evaluating their work, they are more motivated. That doesn’t mean we don’t give students challenging work, rather, that we help them understand the struggles we design for them.

Our adaptation of Palmer’s transparent assignment template is a great tool for helping faculty think through how to make the learning process clear to students.

Click on the links below for exemplary assignments from a range of disciplines at UCF.

• Humanities Assignment
• Business Assignment
• Public Administration Assignment
• Public Speaking Assignment and Evaluation Sheet
• Biomedical Science Assignment and Peer Review Sheet
• General Group Project Assignment

More Information About Assessment

For information about UCF’s Academic Learning Compacts (ALCs), see Operational Excellence and Assessment Support .

Read more about providing students with effective feedback here: https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/instructors/teaching-resources/giving-feedback-on-student-writing.html

The Cowbell

News and Resources from UWGB's Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning

Assignment Design

There’s a fine line between assignment design and assessment strategies . In short, designing good assignments is one means of assessing your students’ learning on a larger scale.

Assignments help measure student learning in your course. Effective assignment design in your course involves aligning your assignments with learning outcomes. When assignments and outcomes are aligned, good grades and good learning go hand in hand ( https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/assessments.html ).

Assessments fall into one of two categories, formative or summative .

Formative assessments are typically low-stakes and help students identify their strengths and weaknesses so that they can improve their learning. Routine formative assessments also help instructors identify the areas where students are struggling and adapt their teaching accordingly.

Summative assessments evaluate student learning (such as at the end of a unit of instruction). Summative assessments are generally higher stakes (like midterm exams and final projects).

Assignments are what students actually ‘do’ as part of those assessments.

Incorporating a mix of assignment activities in your course can help students practice and demonstrate their mastery of outcomes in multiple ways. Consider ways you can design your assignments so that they better mirror the application of knowledge in real-world scenarios. Assignments designed in this way are often referred to as Authentic Assessments ( Authentic-assessment.pdf (uwex.edu)). One type of highly authentic assessment is the long-term project which challenges students to solve a problem or complete a challenge requiring the application of course concepts ( Project_Based_Learning.pdf (uwex.edu) ).

More details and examples can be found in the tabbed content box below. Please also consider signing up for a CATL consultation with one of our instructional designers for some personalized assistance in developing your ideas for assignments and ensuring that they align with your course outcomes .

(Adapted from Carnegie Mellon's:  Design and Teach a Course )

Assessments should provide instructors and students with evidence of how well students have mastered the course outcomes.

There are two major reasons for aligning assessments with learning outcomes.

• Alignment increases the probability that we will provide students with the opportunities to learn and practice knowledge and skills that instructors will require students know in the objectives and in the assessments. (Teaching to the assessment is a  good  thing.)
• When instructors align assessments with outcomes, students are more likely to translate "good grades" into "good learning." Conversely, when instructors misalign assessments with objectives, students will focus on getting good grades on the assessments, rather than focusing on mastering the material that the instructor finds important.

Instructors may use different types of assessments to measure student proficiency in a learning objective. Moreover, instructors may use the same activity to measure different objectives. To ensure a more accurate assessment of student proficiency, many instructional designers recommend that you use different kinds of activities so that students have multiple ways to practice and demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

Formative assessment

The goal of formative assessment is to  monitor student learning  to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally  low stakes , which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

• draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic
• submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture
• turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to  evaluate student learning  at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often  high stakes , which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:

• a midterm exam
• a final project
• a senior recital

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

Formative Assessments:

• Reading quizzes
• Concept map
• Muddiest point
• Pro/con grid
• Focused paraphrasing
• Reflective journal
• Virtual lab/game
• Webconference
• Debate (synchronous or asynchronous)
• Participant research
• Peer review

Summative Assessments:

• Presentation
• Portfolio project

Carnegie Mellon University on Aligning Assessments with Objectives with examples.

Items to consider when weighing your assessment options:

If you are thinking about using discussions, be sure to think about the following:.

• What kind of questions/situations do you want the students to discuss? Is it complex enough to allow students to build knowledge beyond the textbook? Will the discussion help students meet your objectives (and develop an answer for your essential questions)?
• What are your expectations for discussions? Should students participate (post) a certain number of times, with a certain number of words, and reply to a certain number of people?
• What is your role in the discussion (traffic cop, the person who clarifies issues, will you respond to every post)?

If you are thinking about using quizzes, be sure to think about the following:

• What type of questions will help your students meet the objectives of the course? Are you going to grade essay questions or just let the computer grade multiple choice questions?
• What is the place for academic integrity? Are you going to randomize questions, randomize answers, restrict time, restrict the answers that students can see after completing the exam?
• How are you going to populate your quiz? Are you going to write the questions or use questions that come from a textbook publisher?

If you are thinking of using essays, be sure to think about the following:

• Will these essays/papers help students to meet the course objectives, which ones? Is the length of the essay appropriate?
• What do you think about plagiarism checkers such as TurnItIn?
• To what extent will you allow students to submit drafts, and will you provide feedback on drafts, or will you use a peer review system?

Other items to consider:

• Are you thinking about using an alternative assignment? If so, you may want to talk with an instructional technologist or designer.
• Consider the type of feedback you will provide for each assignment. What should students expect from you; how will you communicate those expectations; and how soon will you provide feedback (realistically)?

Further resources

Small teaching online.

This book (requires UWGB login) contains many tips that are easy to integrate into your distance education class. The chapter on “ surfacing backward design” contains many tips for assessment for online classes, many of which are adaptable to all distance modalities.

CATL Resources

• Collaborative Learning Assignments  (Toolbox article)
• Administering Tests and Quizzes (including alternatives) (Toolbox article)
• Writing Good Multiple Choice Questions ( TeAch Tuesday , YouTube)

Tip sheets from UW-System

UW-System put together some tip sheets for common sticking points in assessment for distance education.

• Writing effective multiple choice questions
• Authentic assessments
• Unproctored online assessments
• Project-based learning

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Transparent Assignment Design

When we communicate how and why students are learning course content in certain ways, we are being transparent about the methods we use for teaching and learning. The goal of Transparent Assignment Design is to “to make learning processes explicit and equally accessible for all students” (Winkelmes et al., 2019, p. 1). This involves sharing three critical pieces of information with students:

Purpose : Describe why students are completing an assignment and what knowledge and skills they will gain from this experience. Additionally, explain how this knowledge and skill set are relevant and will help the students in the future.

Task : Explain the steps students will take to complete the assignment.

Criteria and Examples : Show the students what successful submissions look like (e.g., provide a checklist or rubric and real-world examples).

The figure below illustrates an example of an assignment that has incorporated Transparent Assignment Design.

Additional examples in a variety of disciplines can be found on the TILT Higher Ed website.

Providing a full picture of a specific assignment, complete with the purpose, task, and criteria and examples, can equip students to do their best work. Research shows that Transparent Assignment Design benefits learning for all students, but it is especially beneficial to students in traditionally underrepresented groups, such as those who are non-white, low-income, first-generation, or struggling with general college success. In a 2014-2016 Association of American Colleges & Universities study, students self-reported an increase in academic confidence, sense of belonging, and acquisition of employer-valued skills in courses that were considered more transparent (Winkelmes et al., 2016).

CATLR Tips:

• Start with an informative title! The title should give students a preview of the purpose of the assignment. For example, an assignment title such as “Scientific Evidence” can be renamed “Evaluating Posters for Scientific Evidence.”
• Indicate the due date (date and time, including time zone) and how the students should submit (e.g., through the Assignments section on Canvas).
• Prior to distributing an assignment to students, ask a colleague to review it. Specifically, ask if they can identify the purpose, task, and criteria.
• Provide multiple examples that illustrate successful submissions in order to avoid students thinking there is one “correct” way to complete the assignment.

References:

Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) Higher Ed. (n.d.). TILT higher ed examples and resources. https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources

Winkelmes, M. A., Bernacki, M., Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., & Weavil, K. H. (2016). A teaching intervention that increases underserved college students’ success.  Peer Review ,  18 (1/2), 31-36.

Winkelmes, M. A., Boye, A., & Tapp, S. (2019). Transparent design in higher education teaching and leadership: A guide to implementing the transparency framework institution-wide to improve learning and retention.  Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Artificial Intelligence and Assignment Design

Generative ai assignments.

There are both academic and practical reasons you may choose to incorporate generative AI assignments into your course. For example, you may believe that AI will be a skill needed in the students’ future careers in your field. Perhaps you see AI as a tool to help students deepen their understanding of and engagement with your content. You may see the introduction of AI into your classroom as a way to open a conversation about its ethical and academic implications. Integrating AI ironically allows instructors to think deeply about how to design assignments that cannot be easily generated by AI alone to deter plagiarism and cheating. This guide comes from the perspective that you are open to developing AI assignments.

Note, it is critical to develop AI policies for your course along with policies for specific AI assignments.

Considerations for Developing an AI Assignment

Alignment with your course goals.

In the development of AI assignments, the primary consideration is whether the use of AI will help your students achieve the learning goals of the course. Ask yourself, does this assignment help student gain skills and knowledge central to your course and field? Furthermore, consider whether the assignment is engaging enough to warrant incorporating AI. Are you asking students to go above and beyond the AI-generated content? An impactful assignment will challenge students to transform, expand upon, correct, or critique the information and content generated by AI or learning about themselves in relationship to AI. Educational pedagogy expert Derek Bruff gives further insight into how to think about AI assignments as they relate to course design in his blog post about AI and writing assignments .

Guidelines for Use

If you integrate AI into your assignments, be sure to discuss your expectations with your students. It is essential that they understand why you have decided to allow AI in the course and its role in their learning. Furthermore, students can be engaged in wider conversations about AI and its personal impact on their lives. The University of Calgary has developed a set of recommendations of how to start these conversations. One strategy is writing a code of conduct that emphasizes critical thinking and sets guardrails of proper use. You can provide a prewritten list of guidelines or work with the students from scratch by posing questions about AI and learning.

For example, the class may have guidelines such as:

• We will only use AI to help our intellectual development, not replace it.
• We will be transparent in our use of AI.
• We will not submit AI generated text without attribution.
• We will follow guidelines of when AI is appropriate to use.

Assignment Mechanics

Detailed instructions for an AI assignment will raise the chances for a successful learning experience. Students are not familiar with the processes of this novel type of intellectual work, and thinking through the different facets of the activity will help you to execute and evaluate the assignment confidently. Consider the following questions:

• Are you allowing ample time to complete the assignment considering it is a new tool for students?
• Is it better to do the assignment together in class or out of class?
• Have you practiced using the technology together?
• How should AI be cited? Are there specific steps for showing how the original AI text is changed?
• What kind of prompts are allowed? What functions can AI be used for?
• How will you provide feedback on their use of AI?

AI Literacy

Both you and your students should have a level playing field when it comes to understanding generative AI. You cannot count on students to understand the pitfalls and limitations of AI or even how to use the tools. There are existing resources on AI literacy developed specifically for students that can be a starting point. This library guide from the University of Arizona instructs students on AI, plus there is a companion guide for instructors as well.

Ethical Concerns

There are ethical issues to using AI beyond questions of plagiarism, copyright and academic integrity that should be considered. First, to minimize threats to the privacy of your students and yourself, personal information should not be shared. To dive deeper into privacy concerns, speak with students about the implications of AI services using our data to train their tools.

Second, students may not have equal access to the internet or sufficient funds for subscriptions to AI tools. Be sure to suggest several different AI tools and confirm that students are able to access at least one tool without paying for it. Not all students may take to generative AI equally and will not have the skills to architect effective prompts for your discipline or type of assignment. You can support them by modeling prompt generation or forming groups in class that can work together with AI.

Finally, for instructors who do allow AI for learning, there should be considerations for students who do not want to use it on ethical grounds. This could be solved by making AI assignments low-stakes or optional.

Types of Generative AI Assignments

Below are some general ideas of how to incorporate AI into your course. We encourage you to seek out examples from your discipline or related to the core skills of your course. Some resources worth exploring are ChatGPT asssignments to use in your classroom today (an open source book from the University of Central Florida) and a publication on coding and generative AI by an international group of computer science instructors. Instructors may also wish to leverage generative AI to help with routine tasks and lesson planning .

Brainstorming Ideas and Defining Concepts

Generative AI excels at summarizing content and explaining concepts. Warning to students, it is not necessarily 100% correct!

• Users can ask AI to brainstorm research questions. “What are some examples of bank failures due to fractional reserve banking ?” Or, “What are some of the major events of the Cold War?”
• Users can ask AI for clarification of concepts or terms they don’t understand.  “Explain fractional reserve banking in simple terms. ” Or, “What are the Federalist papers and why are they important?”
• Instructors can ask for resources or ideas of how to teach students content.   “Provide an explanation of fractional reserve banking that discusses the pros and cons of its use .” Or, “What are some exercises to do in the classroom to teach the lifecycle of a butterfly?”

Writing Assistance

While it is possible to use generative AI to correct an entire essay, students can be instructed to prompt AI to provide limited feedback on specific aspects of their writing. Prompts could be limited in scope. For example, students can ask AI to:

• Rate the clarity of an argument “How well did I explain X? ” Or, “Does this writing contain all of the standard sections of a case study ?”
• Suggest alternatives “Rewrite the conclusion to better summarize the content.” Or, “What is another way to explain this idea?”
• Comment on writing mechanics “Review the sentence structure in this essay.” Or, “Check this essay for passive voice.”
• Provide advice for improvement “List the common grammar mistakes in the essay and provide an explanation of the errors.” Or, “How can I make this writing more upbeat?”

Collaborative Writing

One popular assignment helps instructors show why writing for yourself is important intellectual work. Students read an AI-generated essay and grade it with a rubric. As a class the students discuss its strengths and weaknesses. As a follow-up students can submit a revised essay. In one Yale course, the instructor told students to ask ChatGPT to write its own version of a writing prompt after the students had completed an assignment so they could compare their writing against it.

Another approach to collaboration is to ask AI to write a first draft of an assignment. Students then improve it by doing independent research to double-check the AI content and refining (or rejecting) the AI arguments. Students should record both the questions they asked and the generated text. Students can also be asked to write summaries describing what they learned from the AI search and what they changed. The SPACE framework is a powerful model for organizing these types of writing assignments; the article details the cycle of prompting AI, evaluating its output, and rewriting AI generated content.

Arguably, the greatest strength of generative AI tools may be their ability to write code. Computer scientists are especially concerned about assignments in entry-level programming classes. The way coding is taught may change over time due to AI, but there are short-term strategies that incorporate AI but demand student input. 

• AI could be asked to generate small snippets of code that students integrate into a larger programming project. Students test, debug and refine the code.
• After completing a coding assignment, students prompt AI to write a different implementation of the problem and analyze which is more efficient and why.
• Instructors or students write faulty code and use ChatGPT to generate test cases and/or to fix the errors. 
• Instructors take advantage of AI to generate more coding assignments and review questions for exams.

Two researchers from UC San Diego published the findings of a study about the attitudes of computer scientists to generative AI and possible directions for teaching coding in the future.

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools do not produce expository content only. They are also able to generate content in many creative genres, often with laughable results ( “Write a pop song in the style of Shakespeare” ) The breadth of the kinds of writing generative AI can mimic might provide the chance for humans to use generative AI to spark creativity in themselves. Student might ask AI to describe the life in the Middle Ages from the perspective of a midwife as inspiration to write a modern version, or as background information for writing in another genre. Generative AI can help instructors deliver content in new ways, for example introducing games into teaching. Instructors might ask AI to develop trivia questions for exam review or a game of 20 questions as an in-class activity.

Generative AI can be a coach for learning that supports both instructors and students. Students can easily get more information about what they don’t understand. AI can be an agent for adaptive learning allowing students to “pass” certain learning objectives and get additional practice on concepts and skills they haven’t mastered. By the same token, it can assist instructors who need to provide additional assistance to students and are pressed for time to find resources. Instructors can get ideas for teaching a skill or subject with activity descriptions and lesson plans. AI can generate practice problems or review questions for exam prep, which frees up time for instructors for other class prep.

There are also positive gains in equity when generative AI is used in a tutoring setting. A neurodiverse student may find conversations with a bot to be non-judgmental and less stressful when needing help. Non-native speakers can ask for word and concept definitions to level up their understanding of course content and context. The review and tutoring capabilities of AI can help all students to practice concepts and receive feedback on their progress.

Looking Ahead

Incorporating generative AI into education is not without peril. Students’ reliance on AI content could potentially lead to losing skills in academic writing. There is the risk that students might mistakenly believe that AI is inherently better at developing ideas and expressing information; leaving students uncomfortable adding their own voice to writing. Without training on how to check the validity of AI content and conduct independent research, students may miss out on how to evaluate sources and compare ideas.

Like it or not, at this moment it lands on educators to design courses and assignments to mitigate these risks and to have hard and timely conversations with students. It may feel like AI is encroaching on teaching and learning, but we should remember that there are many aspects of teaching that are as important as delivering content. These are skills that only human instructors can perform, such as

• Providing real-time feedback on complex tasks
• Grading or producing subjective or substantive work
• Providing social or emotional support 
• Teaching complex, interconnected concepts
• Engaging in personal interactions

The future of teaching may increasingly focus on those skills that our students need to make sense of their world, engage with others productively and make connections across disciplines and concepts.

General Resources for AI Assignments

A Teacher’s Guide to Prompt ChatGPT , Andrew Herft

AI in the Classroom , UC Riverside

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Assignment Design

Related links.

Designing Quantitative Reasoning Assignments

To speed your work, check out the Discipline- and method-specific activity collections or browse activities that emphasize teaching with data in a variety of disciplines

Begin with explicitly articulated student learning outcomes for your course

What are the 4 to 7 key learning goals for this course? And how does teaching with data support students' achievement of those goals? It is easy to become excited by a new pedagogy when the research suggests it can notably enhance student learning. And when we are excited we want to dive right in. But before jumping in to revising assignments or course modules it is important to step back and identify the ways the new activities will connect with the primary objectives for the course.

This is true for at least two reasons. First, syllabi are very tight. Most faculty have never met a colleague who concluded a term saying, "With two weeks left in the term I had covered everything I felt I needed to cover. The rest of the term was just filler." Across all fields, faculty are keenly aware of disciplinary expectations of content coverage for courses. This sense of obligation is particularly sharp in courses which are pre-requisites for other courses in the curriculum. With so much external pressure, any aspect of a course that doesn't align with primary learning goals must be quickly tossed aside, no matter how much excitement surrounded its initial addition to the syllabus.

Second (and more importantly), innovations in teaching should never be done for the sake of "change." The goal is to teach students more effectively. While teaching with data often achieves that end, it is very time intensive (for both the faculty member and students) and so needs to be used deliberately when and where it is aligned with course goals.

Read more about course design

Consider having students work in teams to mitigate skills gaps

Sometimes teams can allow an instructor to work around variations in student experience with tools or methods. If you survey your class at the beginning of the term to find out who is comfortable with what, you can assign students to teams designed to ensure that each team has an "expert" in each tool and/or method required in the assignment.

If you choose to proceed in this direction, make sure to ask yourself whether you want all of the students to end up equally well-prepared with the required methods and tools. Is it okay if the one student who has experience with this instrument collects the data while others look on (and never learn to do it themselves)? If not, then be sure to build in time for peer instruction.

Read more about cooperative learning Read more about peer-led team learning

Consider "scaffolding" your teach-with-data assignment

Scaffolding allows you to correct fundamental errors before they are inserted into the larger, final product. This serves two purposes. First, it helps students organize their work. Research shows that when students are asked to take on new tasks, they may experience regression in previously mastered skills. This predictably follows from having their attention devoted to the new task at hand. Scaffolding helps students see their work as a series of more manageable pieces.

The second purpose for scaffolding is more pragmatic. Teaching-with-data assignments often involve a complex interaction of tasks. (Indeed, that is often the point!) When students make a fundamental mistake in the first step, the resulting final product can be incredibly difficult to grade. While much of what the students did after making the early error "made sense," the final product may be irreparably damaged. The tension between "what follows makes sense given the error" and "the error leads to a ridiculous end point" can be very difficult to resolve.

Scaffolding also allows you to increase the complexity of assignments over the course of the term. For example, if some skills are not consistently taught in prior classes, then you can use assignments early in the term to teach students the methods you want them to use in the final project.

Of course, scaffolding need not be an either/or proposition. You may choose to scaffold assignments at the beginning of the term and then eliminate this guardrail as students gain confidence and competence. The main point is that instructors must equip students with the skills they need before they take on any new task.

Read more about scaffolding and sequencing

Provide instruction for the methods/tools students will need

Sometimes this principle can go without saying because the goal of the teaching-with-data activity is to teach students the new method or tool. But often our goal is to get students to wrestle with the data or the ideas behind the data. The analysis tool is just a vehicle. For example, you may ask students to explore the correlations between several variables using Excel. Despite fluently mastering hundreds of apps for the smart phones, a large fraction of students have never used a spreadsheet. Even a "simple" task like plotting the data in a scatter plot can pose significant challenges. Without instruction, students can waste time that was intended for data exploration.

While students often require instruction, this does not necessarily mean you need to provide it personally during class time. Most information technology departments can provide introductions to software tools. And many such tools have online tutorials which can be assigned to students who lack experience. However, the more specific the tool or method is to your discipline the more likely you will have to teach it yourself. Two areas that commonly require teaching: the use of statistical tools and understanding and creating graphs .

You get what you teach: Provide explicit instruction on data analysis and presentation

Providing examples of high quality work will help some students. Better yet, provide a set of examples that demonstrates a range of quality. But most will need you to "walk them through" those examples to help them see what makes good work good. If you have a grading rubric, strongly consider sharing it with your students. As one colleague of mine said about her early (and bumpy) experience as a scholar, "I wasn't producing C work because I wanted to. It was just that no one had shown me how to produce A work!"

• The literature on learning shows that students need two or more examples to distinguish surface characteristics from underlying principles--and you probably want them to focus on the principles! See Gick and Holyoak 1983 for the seminal research on the importance of multiple examples.
• Jane Miller's Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers provides a great model for showing students a set of examples of varying quality.)

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