“Test Drive” an Assignment Service

Starting at UNC and continuing at SMU, I developed and offered a consultation service that used my background in education and instructional design to evaluate and redesign research assignments for faculty interested in implementing Information Literacy in their course instruction. For each assignment consultation, I would approach the assignment both as a student and as a librarian and then offer feedback on any potential areas of concerns. I would then go on to work the the faculty member to redesign the assignment. Finally, after the assignment had been given to students I would debrief with the faculty member to assess their impressions on the educational efficacy of the assignment design.

By the time I had left UNC, I had consulted on over 100 assignments and nearly 60% of the First Year Writing course were using a “Test Driven Assignment.” At SMU, this service allowed me the opportunity to serve on the First Year Writing and Critical Reasoning Task Force as we redesigned the research and writing components of the new Common Curriculum. This means every research assignment used in the First Year Writing classes at SMU is developed from library “Test Driven” template.

Links:

Example Scholarly Research Paper (This is an fictitious assignment with sample feedback used to demonstrate the service to new faculty)

Slides to an Assignment Redesign Workshop