We often talk to students about what we want in an assignment but less often do we talk about why we are asking students to do something. In the TILT Framework, there are two elements to an assignment prompt—purpose and task.
Assignment Purpose: In an assignment, it is important to explain to students the skills they will practice as well as the knowledge they will gain. And, in addition to relating these elements to the course outcomes, it is important to relate the skills and knowledge to their real lives. For example, in a career course, a student might be asked to do an informational interview about a career they are considering. In a case like this, the purpose, skills, and knowledge could look something like this:
- Assignment: Informational Interview
- Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to help you make an informed decision about the major/career you are considering
- Skills: The purpose of this assignment is to help you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in school and your professional life beyond school. In this assignment you will:
- Access and collect needed information from appropriate primary and secondary sources.
- Synthesize information to develop informed views
- Compose a well-organized, clear, concise report to expand your knowledge on a subject on your major (or the major you are considering).
- 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 in-text sources and creating reference pages (i.e., bibliographies).
Assignment Task: In an assignment, you should outline specifically what you expect the student to do and how to do it. This means stepping through all the elements of the assignment (e.g., first do this, second do this). You are using your expert knowledge to help focus student effort in the most effective way and avoid unnecessary or unproductive time. To continue with the interview example above, this is what the task steps would look like:
Task: to complete this assignment you should:
- Select two professionals in your prospective academic discipline and/or career field that are considered experts in an area in which you are interested.
- Secure an interview with the professionals for a date and time that is convenient for both of you.
- Prepare 8-10 questions to ask professionals about their expertise in a particular academic discipline/career field. The questions must be based on a review of the field using 5 credible sources as defined by the librarian in our research module. Sources should be cited using APA formatting.
- Conduct a 20-30 minute, face-to-face interview with each professional to gather knowledge that will help you to 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.
- Prepare a typed transcript of the interviews.
- Prepare and contrast the information provided by both professionals in an 8 page (1.5 spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins) report that documents the advantages and disadvantages of a career in the selected field.