By Funmi Amobi, Oregon State University Center for Teaching and Learning
Successful completion of course assignments is an important step toward the attainment of learning success. Yet, assignments that seem relevant, straightforward, and clear to an instructor may generate frustrating complaints from students such as: “Why are we doing this?” “This is just busy work.” “I don’t know what you want.” Incorporating a simple framework for designing more transparent assignments should help to minimize these complaints, preempt any confusion, and ultimately promote student learning. This intervention challenges faculty to communicate–in terms that all their students will understand–three factors about their course assignments namely, the purpose, task, and criteria (Rudenga, 2024).
What is a transparent assignment?
A transparent assignment focuses on making an instructor’s implicit knowledge about course assignments more explicit to students by directly articulating the purpose of an assignment, clarifying the task that students need to do, and specifying the criteria for assessing their work. Transparent assignment design is an important component of Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT), a framework that focuses on making teaching practices visible and meaningful to students. At the classroom level, transparency refers to a teaching process that clarifies to students the instructor’s choices for learning activities and how these choices are related to course learning outcomes and real-world situations (Winkelmes, 2023).
Why make less transparent assignments more transparent?
Research supports the efficacy of transparent assignment design. In a multi-institution study that comprised 35 faculty and 1,800 students, researchers found that by revising two assignments to make them more transparently designed, students experienced significantly greater academic benefits. The benefits were larger for first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students in introductory-level courses (Winkelmes et al., 2016). Faculty reported more on-time completion of assignments, fewer disputes about grades, and improvement in the quality of students’ work in response to the redesigned transparent assignments (Winkelmes et al., 2015). Given the preceding evidence, it is accurate to conclude that moving assignments from less to more transparent assignments enhances student learning success.
Want to make your assignments more transparent to students?
Here is how:
- Articulate purpose. In order to make an assignment more transparent, it is important to communicate to students why the assignment is needed and how it is integrated into the course. To do this, describe the connection of the assignment to course learning outcomes. In addition, explain the knowledge and skills that students will gain from completing the assignment, and how the knowledge and skill set will be relevant to them in the future, beyond your course or college.
- Define task. To remove guesswork and lower anxiety on how to start the assignment, be absolutely clear about what students will do and how to do it. This may include listing the steps students should take and providing directions or information links on how to access print and digital resources required to complete the assignment (Lichliter & Kirk, 2024).
- Explain the criteria. The final step is to give instructions to guide successful completion of the assignment. You can clarify the criteria in several ways including a rubric, a checklist, or an example of low and high-quality work to point students toward the expectations for achievement. Also, create opportunities for students to use the criteria to self- or peer-review their work.
Thinking about the process of reworking assignments from less transparent to a more transparent format may generate this question: Do I have to change all course assignments to the purpose/task/criteria framework? The first step is to identify the assignments that students find challenging because the required task entails problem solving and critical thinking skills. Start small by first transforming two of those assignments into transparent assignments (Winkelmes et al., 2016). Another question may pertain to how to get students to use the transparent assignment format to improve the quality of their work. Delivering more transparency to an assignment does not guarantee that students will perceive and receive it. This is why it is important to invest class time to communicate the three aspects of the format to students and clear up any initial misunderstandings that could hinder successful accomplishment before they get started. Additionally, it should be helpful to ensure that the description of the assignment is readable and well-organized and that the tone is inviting and inclusive of the diversity of the students in your class (Palmer et al., 2018).
Want to learn more about how to make your assignments more transparently designed? Register for the CTL Sparkshop on January 24 at noon via Zoom.
About the author: Funmi Amobi, Ed.D., is an instructional consultant and college liaison in the Center for Teaching and Learning. She consults with faculty, facilitates mini-workshops (Sparkshops), and creates evidence-based guides on teaching-related topics to support teaching excellence and student learning success.
Editor’s note: This is part of a 2024-25 series of Insights from the Center posts by staff of the OSU Center for Teaching and Learning.
Insights from the Center image generated with DALL-E 3, Oct. 13, 2024.
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