Open Pedagogy: Making Assignments Meaningful
Tricia Boucher
Learning Objectives
After reading this section you will understand:
- Disposable vs. renewable assignments
- Transforming your assignments
- Examples of renewable assignments
Disposable vs. Renewable Assignments
My favorite question: If I use the same assignment in my class every year, does that make it a renewable assignment?
The answer: No.
A first step towards Open Pedagogy is to take a single assignment and transform it to Open – from a “disposable” assignment into a “renewable” one. Both types of assignments are classified by their audience and openness:
- Disposable assignment: The audience is the student and the instructor only, and the content of the finished product is private to the two of them. The assignment carries little meaning for the student beyond the grade received, and the graded artifact is disposed of after the class is complete.
- Renewable assignment: The audience is the class, other classes, the university, or some segment of the larger community, and students are invited to share the finished product openly (for use/reuse by others without restriction). The assignment carries meaning in that student learning will impact other people’s lives, and the finished product can live in the world as an Open Educational Resource for others to learn from.
A renewable assignment gives students agency to direct their learning in a way that helps them understand the material in light of what they are interested in and what might be helpful for others.
Transform your Assignment
When starting to transform a disposable assignment to a renewable one, the first step most people take is to decide what format or platform the content will be shared on. And it is tempting to start there. I mean, who hasn’t thought “Wow, this research paper would make a great podcast!”?
But jumping to the format or platform first can cause a mismatch between what is being learned, who might be interested in it, and who can discover and access the material. These three things need to come together for success – the last thing you want is to have great content and an interested audience and never have them connect.
Here are steps to transform an assignment from disposable to renewable:*
- Analyze the original assignment: What is being learned? This should include considering content, skills, and behaviors.
- Find an audience: What is a good audience for your assigned content? What changes would make the content meaningful beyond the learner?
- Choose a format/platform: How will you reach the audience? How does the assignment artifact (what students produce) need to be changed to do so? Where will the final artifact be stored and/or be made discoverable?
- Update the assignment and prompt: What needs to be changed? Consider scaffolding information about why this assignment is different, plus information about the skills, tools, and technologies needed to complete the assignment in its new format.
- Update the assessment rubric: Can the new assignment artifact be assessed? Consider how best to clearly identify what is important in the assignment outcome.
- Negotiate openness with students: In some universities, students own their own work, and their credit or grade cannot depend on their willingness to share their work openly – but don’t forget to give them the opportunity.
- Get feedback: How did it go? Ask the students, check the quality of their work against previous versions of the assignment, and consider changes you might make.
*Adapted from “Evolving Into the Open: A Framework for Collaborative Design of Renewable Assignments” by Stacy Katz and Jennifer Van Allen. In Open Pedagogy Approaches, edited by Alexis Clifton and Kimberly Davies Hoffman.
Renewable Assignment Examples
- Change a required essay into a audio-visual project to explain the topic to a larger audience in a fun way, as in this classic 2007 remix of the Kennedy/Nixon debate where Kennedy and Nixon discuss the differences between Blogs and Wikis.
- Change a quiz into a chance for students to create study materials for each other – have them write the quiz questions (and provide answers) for each other, or even better, for an open textbook so students in other schools can learn from them too.
- Change a research paper on a specific project into a Wikipedia page editing project – check out the dashboards here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dashboard.wikiedu.org_course_pages. Click on a topic/course that interests you and see what each week’s work is.
- Change a research paper or essay into a series of podcast scripts or interviews, then record and edit your script (or live interview) in Alkek One to create your podcast!
- Change discussion prompts into social annotation of a document using Hypothes.is or Perusall (both are supported in Canvas, and ).
This just scratches the surface of the opportunities Open Pedagogy provides you, your students, and the larger university and surrounding communities.
Digging Deeper
Interested in learning more?
- Read this Biology professor’s take on using Open Pedagogy in Biology courses.
- Check out Penn State University’s Open Pedagogy Project Roadmap
- And take a look at these assignment example repositories:
- From the Open Pedagogy Notebook
- From the Open Education Network’s new Open Pedagogy Portal
- From the UNC Charlotte’s Open Pedagogy Learning Outcomes example projects
- Interested in partnering on some Open Pedagogy research in your discipline? There’s a need!
- Check out this paper for an example of current research, and contact your Open Pedagogy Librarian!
Disposable assignment: The audience is the student and the instructor only, and the content of the finished product is private to the two of them. The assignment carries little meaning for the student beyond the grade received, and the graded artifact is disposed of after the class is complete.
Renewable assignment: The audience is the class, other classes, the university, or some segment of the larger community, and students are invited to share the finished product openly (for use/reuse by others without restriction). The assignment carries meaning in that student learning will impact other people’s lives, and the finished product can live in the world as an Open Educational Resource for others to learn from.
