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Designing Assignments for Learning

The rapid shift to remote teaching and learning meant that many instructors reimagined their assessment practices. Whether adapting existing assignments or creatively designing new opportunities for their students to learn, instructors focused on helping students make meaning and demonstrate their learning outside of the traditional, face-to-face classroom setting. This resource distills the elements of assignment design that are important to carry forward as we continue to seek better ways of assessing learning and build on our innovative assignment designs.

On this page:

Rethinking traditional tests, quizzes, and exams.

• Examples from the Columbia University Classroom
• Tips for Designing Assignments for Learning

Reflect On Your Assignment Design

Connect with the ctl.

• Resources and References

Cite this resource: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2021). Designing Assignments for Learning. Columbia University. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/designing-assignments/

Traditional assessments tend to reveal whether students can recognize, recall, or replicate what was learned out of context, and tend to focus on students providing correct responses (Wiggins, 1990). In contrast, authentic assignments, which are course assessments, engage students in higher order thinking, as they grapple with real or simulated challenges that help them prepare for their professional lives, and draw on the course knowledge learned and the skills acquired to create justifiable answers, performances or products (Wiggins, 1990). An authentic assessment provides opportunities for students to practice, consult resources, learn from feedback, and refine their performances and products accordingly (Wiggins 1990, 1998, 2014). 

Authentic assignments ask students to “do” the subject with an audience in mind and apply their learning in a new situation. Examples of authentic assignments include asking students to: 

• Write for a real audience (e.g., a memo, a policy brief, letter to the editor, a grant proposal, reports, building a website) and/or publication;
• Solve problem sets that have real world application; 
• Design projects that address a real world problem; 
• Engage in a community-partnered research project;
• Create an exhibit, performance, or conference presentation ;
• Compile and reflect on their work through a portfolio/e-portfolio.

Noteworthy elements of authentic designs are that instructors scaffold the assignment, and play an active role in preparing students for the tasks assigned, while students are intentionally asked to reflect on the process and product of their work thus building their metacognitive skills (Herrington and Oliver, 2000; Ashford-Rowe, Herrington and Brown, 2013; Frey, Schmitt, and Allen, 2012). 

It’s worth noting here that authentic assessments can initially be time consuming to design, implement, and grade. They are critiqued for being challenging to use across course contexts and for grading reliability issues (Maclellan, 2004). Despite these challenges, authentic assessments are recognized as beneficial to student learning (Svinicki, 2004) as they are learner-centered (Weimer, 2013), promote academic integrity (McLaughlin, L. and Ricevuto, 2021; Sotiriadou et al., 2019; Schroeder, 2021) and motivate students to learn (Ambrose et al., 2010). The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning is always available to consult with faculty who are considering authentic assessment designs and to discuss challenges and affordances.   

Examples from the Columbia University Classroom 

Columbia instructors have experimented with alternative ways of assessing student learning from oral exams to technology-enhanced assignments. Below are a few examples of authentic assignments in various teaching contexts across Columbia University. 

• E-portfolios: Statia Cook shares her experiences with an ePorfolio assignment in her co-taught Frontiers of Science course (a submission to the Voices of Hybrid and Online Teaching and Learning initiative); CUIMC use of ePortfolios ;
• Case studies: Columbia instructors have engaged their students in authentic ways through case studies drawing on the Case Consortium at Columbia University. Read and watch a faculty spotlight to learn how Professor Mary Ann Price uses the case method to place pre-med students in real-life scenarios;
• Simulations: students at CUIMC engage in simulations to develop their professional skills in The Mary & Michael Jaharis Simulation Center in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center in the Columbia School of Nursing; 
• Experiential learning: instructors have drawn on New York City as a learning laboratory such as Barnard’s NYC as Lab webpage which highlights courses that engage students in NYC;
• Design projects that address real world problems: Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy on the Engineering design projects completed using lab kits during remote learning. Watch Dr. Yesilevskiy talk about his teaching and read the Columbia News article . 
• Writing assignments: Lia Marshall and her teaching associate Aparna Balasundaram reflect on their “non-disposable or renewable assignments” to prepare social work students for their professional lives as they write for a real audience; and Hannah Weaver spoke about a sandbox assignment used in her Core Literature Humanities course at the 2021 Celebration of Teaching and Learning Symposium . Watch Dr. Weaver share her experiences.  

​Tips for Designing Assignments for Learning

While designing an effective authentic assignment may seem like a daunting task, the following tips can be used as a starting point. See the Resources section for frameworks and tools that may be useful in this effort.  

Align the assignment with your course learning objectives 

Identify the kind of thinking that is important in your course, the knowledge students will apply, and the skills they will practice using through the assignment. What kind of thinking will students be asked to do for the assignment? What will students learn by completing this assignment? How will the assignment help students achieve the desired course learning outcomes? For more information on course learning objectives, see the CTL’s Course Design Essentials self-paced course and watch the video on Articulating Learning Objectives .  

Identify an authentic meaning-making task

For meaning-making to occur, students need to understand the relevance of the assignment to the course and beyond (Ambrose et al., 2010). To Bean (2011) a “meaning-making” or “meaning-constructing” task has two dimensions: 1) it presents students with an authentic disciplinary problem or asks students to formulate their own problems, both of which engage them in active critical thinking, and 2) the problem is placed in “a context that gives students a role or purpose, a targeted audience, and a genre.” (Bean, 2011: 97-98). 

An authentic task gives students a realistic challenge to grapple with, a role to take on that allows them to “rehearse for the complex ambiguities” of life, provides resources and supports to draw on, and requires students to justify their work and the process they used to inform their solution (Wiggins, 1990). Note that if students find an assignment interesting or relevant, they will see value in completing it. 

Consider the kind of activities in the real world that use the knowledge and skills that are the focus of your course. How is this knowledge and these skills applied to answer real-world questions to solve real-world problems? (Herrington et al., 2010: 22). What do professionals or academics in your discipline do on a regular basis? What does it mean to think like a biologist, statistician, historian, social scientist? How might your assignment ask students to draw on current events, issues, or problems that relate to the course and are of interest to them? How might your assignment tap into student motivation and engage them in the kinds of thinking they can apply to better understand the world around them? (Ambrose et al., 2010). 

Determine the evaluation criteria and create a rubric

To ensure equitable and consistent grading of assignments across students, make transparent the criteria you will use to evaluate student work. The criteria should focus on the knowledge and skills that are central to the assignment. Build on the criteria identified, create a rubric that makes explicit the expectations of deliverables and share this rubric with your students so they can use it as they work on the assignment. For more information on rubrics, see the CTL’s resource Incorporating Rubrics into Your Grading and Feedback Practices , and explore the Association of American Colleges & Universities VALUE Rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). 

Build in metacognition

Ask students to reflect on what and how they learned from the assignment. Help students uncover personal relevance of the assignment, find intrinsic value in their work, and deepen their motivation by asking them to reflect on their process and their assignment deliverable. Sample prompts might include: what did you learn from this assignment? How might you draw on the knowledge and skills you used on this assignment in the future? See Ambrose et al., 2010 for more strategies that support motivation and the CTL’s resource on Metacognition ). 

Provide students with opportunities to practice

Design your assignment to be a learning experience and prepare students for success on the assignment. If students can reasonably expect to be successful on an assignment when they put in the required effort ,with the support and guidance of the instructor, they are more likely to engage in the behaviors necessary for learning (Ambrose et al., 2010). Ensure student success by actively teaching the knowledge and skills of the course (e.g., how to problem solve, how to write for a particular audience), modeling the desired thinking, and creating learning activities that build up to a graded assignment. Provide opportunities for students to practice using the knowledge and skills they will need for the assignment, whether through low-stakes in-class activities or homework activities that include opportunities to receive and incorporate formative feedback. For more information on providing feedback, see the CTL resource Feedback for Learning . 

Communicate about the assignment 

Share the purpose, task, audience, expectations, and criteria for the assignment. Students may have expectations about assessments and how they will be graded that is informed by their prior experiences completing high-stakes assessments, so be transparent. Tell your students why you are asking them to do this assignment, what skills they will be using, how it aligns with the course learning outcomes, and why it is relevant to their learning and their professional lives (i.e., how practitioners / professionals use the knowledge and skills in your course in real world contexts and for what purposes). Finally, verify that students understand what they need to do to complete the assignment. This can be done by asking students to respond to poll questions about different parts of the assignment, a “scavenger hunt” of the assignment instructions–giving students questions to answer about the assignment and having them work in small groups to answer the questions, or by having students share back what they think is expected of them.

Plan to iterate and to keep the focus on learning 

Draw on multiple sources of data to help make decisions about what changes are needed to the assignment, the assignment instructions, and/or rubric to ensure that it contributes to student learning. Explore assignment performance data. As Deandra Little reminds us: “a really good assignment, which is a really good assessment, also teaches you something or tells the instructor something. As much as it tells you what students are learning, it’s also telling you what they aren’t learning.” ( Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode 337 ). Assignment bottlenecks–where students get stuck or struggle–can be good indicators that students need further support or opportunities to practice prior to completing an assignment. This awareness can inform teaching decisions. 

Triangulate the performance data by collecting student feedback, and noting your own reflections about what worked well and what did not. Revise the assignment instructions, rubric, and teaching practices accordingly. Consider how you might better align your assignment with your course objectives and/or provide more opportunities for students to practice using the knowledge and skills that they will rely on for the assignment. Additionally, keep in mind societal, disciplinary, and technological changes as you tweak your assignments for future use. 

Now is a great time to reflect on your practices and experiences with assignment design and think critically about your approach. Take a closer look at an existing assignment. Questions to consider include: What is this assignment meant to do? What purpose does it serve? Why do you ask students to do this assignment? How are they prepared to complete the assignment? Does the assignment assess the kind of learning that you really want? What would help students learn from this assignment? 

Using the tips in the previous section: How can the assignment be tweaked to be more authentic and meaningful to students? 

As you plan forward for post-pandemic teaching and reflect on your practices and reimagine your course design, you may find the following CTL resources helpful: Reflecting On Your Experiences with Remote Teaching , Transition to In-Person Teaching , and Course Design Support .

The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is here to help!

For assistance with assignment design, rubric design, or any other teaching and learning need, please request a consultation by emailing [email protected] . 

Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework for assignments. The TILT Examples and Resources page ( https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources ) includes example assignments from across disciplines, as well as a transparent assignment template and a checklist for designing transparent assignments . Each emphasizes the importance of articulating to students the purpose of the assignment or activity, the what and how of the task, and specifying the criteria that will be used to assess students. 

Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) offers VALUE ADD (Assignment Design and Diagnostic) tools ( https://www.aacu.org/value-add-tools ) to help with the creation of clear and effective assignments that align with the desired learning outcomes and associated VALUE rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). VALUE ADD encourages instructors to explicitly state assignment information such as the purpose of the assignment, what skills students will be using, how it aligns with course learning outcomes, the assignment type, the audience and context for the assignment, clear evaluation criteria, desired formatting, and expectations for completion whether individual or in a group.

Villarroel et al. (2017) propose a blueprint for building authentic assessments which includes four steps: 1) consider the workplace context, 2) design the authentic assessment; 3) learn and apply standards for judgement; and 4) give feedback. 

References 

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., & DiPietro, M. (2010). Chapter 3: What Factors Motivate Students to Learn? In How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching . Jossey-Bass. 

Ashford-Rowe, K., Herrington, J., and Brown, C. (2013). Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 39(2), 205-222, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2013.819566 .  

Bean, J.C. (2011). Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom . Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. 

Frey, B. B, Schmitt, V. L., and Allen, J. P. (2012). Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. 17(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.7275/sxbs-0829  

Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., and Oliver, R. (2010). A Guide to Authentic e-Learning . Routledge. 

Herrington, J. and Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(3), 23-48. 

Litchfield, B. C. and Dempsey, J. V. (2015). Authentic Assessment of Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 142 (Summer 2015), 65-80. 

Maclellan, E. (2004). How convincing is alternative assessment for use in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 29(3), June 2004. DOI: 10.1080/0260293042000188267

McLaughlin, L. and Ricevuto, J. (2021). Assessments in a Virtual Environment: You Won’t Need that Lockdown Browser! Faculty Focus. June 2, 2021. 

Mueller, J. (2005). The Authentic Assessment Toolbox: Enhancing Student Learning through Online Faculty Development . MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. 1(1). July 2005. Mueller’s Authentic Assessment Toolbox is available online. 

Schroeder, R. (2021). Vaccinate Against Cheating With Authentic Assessment . Inside Higher Ed. (February 26, 2021).  

Sotiriadou, P., Logan, D., Daly, A., and Guest, R. (2019). The role of authentic assessment to preserve academic integrity and promote skills development and employability. Studies in Higher Education. 45(111), 2132-2148. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1582015    

Stachowiak, B. (Host). (November 25, 2020). Authentic Assignments with Deandra Little. (Episode 337). In Teaching in Higher Ed . https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/authentic-assignments/  

Svinicki, M. D. (2004). Authentic Assessment: Testing in Reality. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 100 (Winter 2004): 23-29. 

Villarroel, V., Bloxham, S, Bruna, D., Bruna, C., and Herrera-Seda, C. (2017). Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 43(5), 840-854. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2017.1412396    

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice . Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Wiggins, G. (2014). Authenticity in assessment, (re-)defined and explained. Retrieved from https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/authenticity-in-assessment-re-defined-and-explained/

Wiggins, G. (1998). Teaching to the (Authentic) Test. Educational Leadership . April 1989. 41-47. 

Wiggins, Grant (1990). The Case for Authentic Assessment . Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 2(2). 

Wondering how AI tools might play a role in your course assignments?

See the CTL’s resource “Considerations for AI Tools in the Classroom.”

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Sections: General Principles of Assignment Design Additional Resources

General Principles of Assignment Design

Assignments: Make Them Effective, Engaging, and Equitable. At their best, assignments are one of the most important learning experiences for students in a course. Students grapple with course content, deepen their understanding, form new ideas, connections, and questions, and show how they are achieving the course or program learning outcomes. Assignments can also affirm students' social identities, interests, and abilities in ways that foster belonging and academic success.

Characteristics of Effective, Engaging, and Equitable Assignments

• Address the central learning outcomes/objectives of your courses. This ensures the relevancy of the assignment (students won’t wonder why they’re doing it) and provides you with an assessment of student learning that tells you about the progress your students are making.
• Interesting and challenging . What assignments are most memorable to you? Chances are they asked you to apply knowledge to an interesting problem or to do it in a creative way. Assignments can be seen as more relevant when they connect to a real world problem or situation, or when students imagine they are presenting the information to a real world audience (e.g., policy makers), or when they can bring in some aspect of their own experience. Assignments can also be contextualized to reflect the values or priorities of the institution.
• Purpose: Why are you asking students to do the assignment? How does it connect with course learning objectives and support broader skill development that students can draw upon well after your class is over? Often the purpose is very clear to us but we don’t always spell it out for our students.
• Tasks: What steps will students need to take to complete the assignment successfully? Laying this out helps students organize what they need to do and when.
• Criteria for Success: What does excellence look like? This can be described through text or a rubric that aligns expectations with the key elements of the assignment.
• Utility value: How can you make adjustments that allow students to perceive the assignment has more value, either professionally, academically, or personally?
• Inclusive content: Is the assignment equally accessible to all students? If examples are drawn from the dominant culture, they are less accessible to students from other cultures. Structuring assignments so that content is equally familiar to all students reduces educational equity gaps by limiting the effects of prior knowledge and privilege.
• Flexibility and variety: Consider how much flexibility and variety you’re offering in your assignments. This allows students to show what they have learned regardless of their academic strengths or familiarity with particular assignment types. Can students choose among different formats for how they’ll present their assignment (paper, podcast or infographic); is there variety in formats across all the course assignments? Multi-modal assignments allow students to represent what they know in various ways and are therefore more equitable by design.
• Support assignments with instructional activities. Planning learning activities that support students’ best work on their assignments is another critical component. This can include having students read model articles in the style in which you are asking them to prepare their own assignment, discuss or apply the rubric to a sample paper, or break the assignment into smaller pieces so that students can get feedback from you or peers on how they are progressing. Another way to support students is to make clear the role of tools like ChatGPT: if it’s used, how can students use it effectively and responsibly? More generally, all major assignments provide opportunities for important discussions about academic integrity and its relevance to work in one’s discipline, higher education, and personal development.
• Provide opportunities for feedback and revision (especially if high-stakes) . Students may receive feedback on their progress or drafts in a variety of ways: peer, faculty, or a library partner. The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning identifies four characteristics of effective feedback: Targeted and Concise; Focused; Action-Oriented; and Timely.

For assignments that ask students to write in the style of a particular discipline and draw upon research, SCU’s Success in Writing, Information, and Research Literacy (SWIRL) project has developed guidance for faculty in assignment design and instruction to improve student writing and critical use of information. 

You can download the WRITE assignment design tool and learn more at the SWIRL website. Members of the SWIRL team welcome individual consultations with faculty on assignment design. You are welcome to contact them for feedback on any assignment you’re designing.

Additional Resources:

Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2021). Feedback for Learning. Columbia University. Retrieved [February 26, 2024] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/feedback-for-learning/

Hobbs H. T., Singer-Freeman K. E., Robinson C. (2021). Considering the effects of assignment choices on equity gaps. Research and Practice in Assessment, 16 (1), 49–62.

SWIRL : For assignments that ask students to write in the style of a particular discipline and draw upon research, SCU’s Success in Writing, Information, and Research Literacy (SWIRL) project has developed guidance for faculty in assignment design and instruction to improve student writing and critical use of information. You can download the WRITE assignment design tool and learn more at the SWIRL website. 

Transparency in Higher Education Project: Examples and Resources. Copyright © 2009-2023 M.A. Winkelmes. Retrieved [February 26, 2024] from   https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources

Winkelmes, M., Boye, A., & Tapp, S. (Eds.). (2019). Transparent design in higher education teaching and leadership. Stylus Publishing.

Page authors: Chris Bachen

Last updated: March 5, 2024

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Course Design

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Updated on August 8, 2024

When following the course development process of backwards design , you first identify the student learning goals for the course and then determine how you will measure student learning. Backwards design aims for  alignment between what you want students to learn and how you are assessing their learning. In theory, you would finalize your course-level learning goals and goals for each major assignment before moving forward with assignment design. In practice, however, many instructors find assignment design to be an iterative process of drafting assignment-level goals, creating an assignment, and then adjusting both the goals and the assignment until they are in alignment with one another and with the course-level learning goals. 

Assignment Goals & Assignment Type

Spending time on assignment-level goals can help you determine the kinds of assignments you want students to complete. For example, if you want students to determine which formula to use to solve a word problem, a well-designed multiple choice question might be a more efficient way to assess their learning than a short answer question. In addition, writing assignment-level goals can help you articulate where you want students to focus their time and energy, which can also impact the form the assessment takes. For example, when considering the learning goals for a research essay, you might decide that being able to choose a topic and develop a research question are crucial learning goals. Therefore, rather than having students draft and write an essay, they can submit a project proposal.

Here are some questions to help you determine learning goals and consider your assignment type:

• How do these goals align with your course-level goals?
• How do they align with the assignment type?
• Does your assignment type oblige students to focus their time and energy on what’s most important?

Depending on how you answer these questions, you may need to revise your assignment goals or assignment type. If you’re looking for some inspiration for different assignment types, the CTE is in the process of assembling some examples from BC faculty .  For more examples, see Harvard University’s types of assignments or the University of Waterloo’s type of assignments and tests .

Course Rhythm

While this resource is about assignment design, not course design, it can be helpful to take a step back and see how a particular assignment fits into the larger rhythm of a course. In the book, Effective Grading , Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson suggest creating a course skeleton that just includes the course-level learning goals and the major assessments. This allows you to check alignment and ask yourself, “Is the workload I am planning for myself and my students feasible, reasonable, strategically placed, and sustainable?” (18). If the answer to any part of this question is “no,” you may need to revise or change the timing of the assignment, or make changes to other major assessments. For example, having two major assignments due in the same week may not give students enough time to successfully complete both, or give you enough time to provide feedback on the first assignment that may help them as they finalize the second one. You might also strategically plan the rhythm of the semester around your own workload and other commitments, so that you are more able to keep up with the pace of providing feedback and grades to students. This sample course outline shows the benefit of moving from a topic-drive to a goal-driven approach to mapping out a course’s rhythm.

Once you have articulated your assignment-level goals, aligned them with your course-level goals and the assignment type, and considered the rhythm of your course, you can think about how you will clarify expectations for your students.