Assignment Charrettes
NILOA has been fostering the use and development of intentionally designed assignments through a faculty-driven, collaborative peer review process – the assignment charrette. Developed in partnership with faculty and experts in the field, our Assignment Charrette Toolkit provides tools, materials, and resources to adapt to local and regional context, along with institutional examples and relevant resources. Click on each banner to expand the selection and access each resource.
Please cite as: National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (2018, February). The assignment charrette toolkit. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA).
Assignment Charrettes in a Time of COVID-19
Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, faculty have taken courses online for the remainder of the academic year, and are planning now to continue online for the summer and possibly fall. This resource offers a few considerations for modifying assignment design conversations to take place virtually.
Making the Case for Assignment Charrettes
Part one of the assignment charrette toolkit introduces the NILOA assignment initiative, presents the case for why assignments, discusses the importance of alignment, and presents elements of effective assignments.
Resources for Conducting an Assignment Charrette
Part two of the assignment charrette toolkit provides a complete set of resources to assist in conducting an assignment charrette, addressing planning a charrette, invitation emails, agendas and timing, guidelines for facilitators and unfacilitated charrettes, and feedback and evaluation forms including follow-up surveys.
Resources for Student Affairs Assignment Charrette
Included here are resources for student affairs focused assignment creation, revision, and design focused assignment charrettes.
Part three of the assignment charrette toolkit includes a zip file of handouts commonly utilized with faculty during an assignment design charrette including feedback forms, review instructions, readings, and additional resources for reflection.
Institutional Examples: Part four of the assignment charrette toolkit provides a variety of examples of institutions and disciplinary association engagement with and modification of assignment design conversations.
Washington State University
University of Hawai’i Manoa
American Historical Association
Palo Alto College
Wicked Reflection Workshop:
Roanoke College and Salt Lake Community College
Taking Assignment Design Online: The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV)
Faculty Development Workshop: The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH)
Part five of the assignment charrette toolkit outlines a variety of additional resources that can help supplement both our examples and assignment design initiatives on your campus.
Clio is a free website and mobile application that can be used as a tool to create and share humanities assignments to foster students’ research, refine writing, and increase their ability to evaluate data sources.
This list includes the Transparency in Learning and Teaching project, scholarly readings, and curated collections of assignment materials.
