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Creating Strong Assignments

EGO Teaching Workshop:. Creating Strong Assignments. Cari Keebaugh & Gary Hink. Choose your general topic:. Check the course description of the class you’ve been assigned to teach (available in the Undergrad Catalogue on ISIS) AML 2010 vs. AML 2410 = survey vs. specific Issue

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Creating Strong Assignments

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  1. EGO Teaching Workshop: Creating Strong Assignments Cari Keebaugh & Gary Hink

  2. Choose your general topic: • Check the course description of the class you’ve been assigned to teach (available in the Undergrad Catalogue on ISIS) • AML 2010 vs. AML 2410 = survey vs. specific Issue • ENG 1131 vs. Film Theory = pop culture & technology vs. film styles and theory

  3. Make a blank schedule: • Remember to include any holidays • Also check to see on what day your final exam has been scheduled Insert your reading in the schedule: • Make sure you have enough/not too much reading for your students to handle each week • Make sure your readings follow some logical order, either by unit/topic, chronological, etc.

  4. Decide how many essays you need: • Keep in mind if your class is a Gordon Rule (University Writing Policy) course. If so, you need to assign a total of 6,000 words (or roughly 20 pages) in your assignments. You can break up the word count in whatever way you see fit. • You can have six 1,000-word (3 ½ pages) assignments; two 300 word, 600 word, 900 word, and 1200 word assignments, etc. • Decide how many essays ought to be in-class assignments, remembering that they count towards the 6,00 words, too.

  5. Decide when you need to assign each essay and when each should be due: • Make sure students have enough time to complete each assignment, taking into account whether they need to do research, whether they need to have time to revise after a peer review, etc. • Make sure to assign essays close to the days you’ll be covering information relevant to the assignment (i.e., don’t assign a definition essay if you won’t be covering that info for three more weeks.)

  6. Modify the assignments if necessary: • Change the number of assignments, the page counts, the due dates, the assignment dates, etc, in order to make the assignments match up logically with the rest of your schedule (readings).

  7. Building Assignments

  8. Building Assignments: • Now that you know when every assignment will be falling during the course of the semester and what readings will be close to those assignments, write out a description of each assignment. • Begin with the goal/scope of each assignment. • What should the students be getting out of this? • What abilities do you want them to demonstrate? • Some professors include this information right on their syllabus so students know exactly what you want from them.

  9. Details, details, details: • Make sure to list exactly what you want the students to do. • Have you covered MLA conventions and research techniques yet? If you did, do you expect your students to demonstrate their knowledge? Should they include one source? Three? Ten? Do they have enough time to incorporate three? Ten? • Do you want them to find their own text to analyze or use one covered in class? Students may be less likely to plagiarize if they can write on something they’re interested in, but some students feel overwhelmed with more open-ended assignments. Take this into consideration when building an assignment.

  10. Details, details, details: • Include due dates, page counts, and formatting instructions along with your prompt. • Is this assignment pass/fail? Is it worth 10 points? 50? 500? What percentage of their final grade does this assignment count for? • What style guide should be used? MLA? APA? CSE? AAA? Chicago? • How big should the margins be? The font? Do you care which font is used?

  11. A final thought before an example: • I recommend having all assignments ready to go on your syllabus on the first day of class. That way, students know EXACTLY what they’re getting into with your class and what you will expect of them throughout the semester. Adding this information makes your syllabus a little longer, but if you remind your students that they’ll be doing each essay one at a time throughout the semester, they won’t mind the extra length – and many of them will appreciate knowing up front what’s going on.

  12. Examples: • When in doubt, ask your friends and Google search other online syllabi for ideas! • Yay for the internet! • Feel free to borrow from my assignments; everything is posted at: http://plaza.ufl.edu/cari84/teaching.html

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