In most courses, assignments form the majority of students’ work. It is important that you convey expectations for assignments and their completion in a clear but supportive way. Adopting the stance of “no secrets teaching” will allow you and your students to have the most successful learning and you, the most rewarding teaching experience possible. Begin with identifying the course learning objectives (using measurable verbs) and how you will assess competencies. Design the final assessment and the interim higher-stakes assessments to engage students and support mastery. This allows you to sequence learning that leads toward mastery. Giving rubrics with assignment descriptions will give your students a clear picture of the learning expectations.

• Engage students in project “exemplar” analysis before an assignment is due
• Use Classroom Assessment Techniques to check for understanding and to promote mental retrieval and deep learning; this can be done in residential, hybrid, and online courses
• Use technology tools to engage students and check for understanding: iClickers, Kahoot, Jamboard, Google
• Use “on the fly” in-class checks for understanding: Fist to five, think-pair-share, think-ink-pair-share, thumb-o-meter, etc.
• Be willing to diverge from your teaching plan if checks for understanding demonstrate student confusion or knowledge gaps
• Give timely feedback
• Give specific feedback; ask questions or use sentences like, “The best part of this is ______ because” or “I don’t have a clear picture of _____.”
• If students will be giving feedback to each other, give them  guidelines, practice, and support
• Make sure students know that formative assessment is a form of supportive feedback – not all formative assessment needs to be graded.