Module 2
Lecture Notes - Part 2b

Assignment Frequency and Design

A. Assignment Frequency

Frequent assignments ensure that instructors and students are on the same page, pace student achievement of the course’s learning objectives, and give students multiple opportunities to build not only on their grade but also on their understanding of the material (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006).
Assuming that the course-level learning goals have been broken down into manageable, self-contained, interrelated, and progressive sets of module-level learning objectives, learning must be assessed after each course module. Therefore, designing a course around combinations of formative and summative assessments that frame and contextualize each course module is the best way to ensure appropriate assessment frequency. It also focuses the course on what is most important to the students (i.e. assignments/grades), by clearly communicating what is expected from them and what they will be able to accomplish by the end of each module and of the course as a whole.

The specific assignment design and management proposed in DOTS incorporate formative assessment into the summative-assessment drafting process. This integration supports both higher student learning and more effective and efficient use of the instructor's expertise and time. We will address assignment management in more detail during Module 4.

B Assignment Design

All well-designed assignments share the following characteristics:

They are authentic (i.e. they require application of knowledge and skills that students will be likely to use in their future careers).

They are relevant (i.e. they place learning activities in the context of the students' other courses and career preparation efforts).

They are interesting and important (i.e. they are somehow tailored to the students' background, involve instructor feedback, and are graded).

They are presented in contexts that encourage rather than prohibit collaborative student work.

They are clearly and tightly aligned with the course- and module-level learning objectives and resources.

They require rather than prohibit access to the course resources during assignment completion.

Effective and efficient ways to nurture collaborative assignment-completion contexts and an outline of their major advantages will be presented in Module 4.

Tight resource alignment with a course’s learning objectives may be accomplished through the following process, which introduces slight but important modifications to the backward-design process, described previously.

After a clear list of interrelated general (course-level) and specific (module-level) learning objectives has been determined, a systematic literature-review process produces a short list of relevant resources. The resources are examined in detail, leading to a slight modification and rearrangement of the learning objectives and a fine-tuning of the final resources to be used in the course. The precise portions of the resources addressing the final learning objectives are identified, summarized into a set of statements that outline the concepts, ideas, and tools with which students should be familiar and comfortable by the end of each module, and converted into the module-level assignment questions/statements.

Rather than being presented separately, lecture notes, readings, and other course-related resources are woven into the assessment activities as supporting materials, turning the course assignments into a one-stop shop for everything course related that the students should be addressing.

The resulting tight alignment among learning objectives, resources, and assignments and the use of the minimum necessary resources to accomplish the desired goals avoid cognitively overloading students and help them focus on the selected resources to efficiently tackle the course's assignments.

What about cheating?

Assignment questions are open ended, and responses require critical synthesis of information from multiple locations in the provided resources. Emphasis is consequently placed on how the answers are justified and supported through argumentation and reference to all of the course resources rather than on memorization and routine application of facts, creating contexts where students are encouraged to assume more responsibility for their learning. Such an approach effectively addresses issues of academic integrity by minimizing cheating opportunities.

Several resources related to academic integrity in online-learning environments have been selected and are listed for you in this module's "References and Additional Resources" page.
The principle cheating-minimization strategy can be summarized in the following statement:
Design assignments and assignment-completion contexts that turn the two most popular forms of cheating (i.e. talking among students and looking at the resources for the assignment responses) into learning activities.

Designing assignments as sets of interrelated, focused questions that require access to all provided resources ensures that the students will familiarize themselves with the necessary materials and that the instructor will be able to clearly assess if the intended objectives have been met.
In addition, all individual module assignments should be designed to provide students with the knowledge and material necessary for the successful completion of a course's major final project. The module-level feedback incrementally sets the standard for the assessment of this project and is supplemented by detailed instructions and sample-project structures that clearly communicate the guidelines for project completion and grading.

Each assignment is therefore designed and presented so that it

• consists of interrelated questions and sub questions that distill everything the
students are expected to get out of the module’s resources;

• provides direct access to only those resources that are both necessary and
sufficient for the assignments to be completed successfully;

• is an important building block for a large end-of-course assignment that each
student is expected to complete, helping students appreciate the relevance of
each specific class module to the course-level goals; and

• supports development of student critical-thinking skills.

C. Assignment Example

(Film Music Interpretation Course, Module 6 of 8 – DePaul School of Music)

Module Topics

Hitchcock and Herrmann: rationalizing the irrational

Music as a psychological agent

Herrmann's innovations and eclectic application of existing techniques

(Previous modules have addressed the classical Hollywood cinema model, variations on this model, and Russian/Marxist contributions to the understanding of music’s role in films.)

Assignment

Use examples from this module’s films to illustrate how Herrmann’s scores follow and challenge classical-Hollywood film-music conventions. Do you find Herrmann’s novel film-scoring practices effective? Why or why not?

How do Herrmann’s techniques relate to Eisenstein’s and Eisler’s ideas?

What do you think is Herrmann’s most interesting scoring practice and why?

Resources

Kalinak, K. (1992). “The language of music: A brief analysis of Vertigo.” In Settling the Score: Music and the Classical Hollywood Film. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press (pp.3-19).

Brown, R.S. (1994). “Actions / Interactions: The source beyond the source.” In Overtones and Undertones. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press [only pp. 82(top)-86(top)].

Lecture Notes (critical discussion of the above readings & additional commentary by the instructor)

Selected clips from Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960), relevant to the assignment questions.

Module 2 Lecture Notes - Part 2b