Assignments

• Are school tasks performed by students which are essential for gauging a learner’s progress.
• Certify that learners have mastered certain knowledge or skills.
• Give students an opportunity to review class material.

A quality assignment is the hallmark of effective instruction.

Assignments help teachers assess students better.

An assignment is a piece of (academic) work or task. It provides opportunities for students to learn, practice and demonstrate they have achieved the learning goals. It provides the evidence for the teacher that the students have achieved the goals.

Types of Assignments

There are different types of assignments. Some of which are Quizzes, Essays and Discussion.

Quiz

• Is a simple method to get to know your students better.
• Can help students practice while they learn.
• Are automatically graded.

Quizzes and Tests are often a go-to for instructors, because they are fast, easy,efficient and cover a lot of content.

Quizzes can be given at every stage of the learning process.

Essay

Essay tests are a commonly used tool of evaluation, despite the increasingly wider applicability of the short answer and objective type questions.

There are certain outcomes of learning (e.g., organising, summarising, integrating ideas and expressing in one’s own way) which cannot be satisfactorily measured through objective type tests. The importance of essay tests lies in the measurement of such instructional outcomes. An essay type question requires the pupil to plan his own answer and to explain it in his own words

An essay is also a question on a test or examination on a given topic requiring a written analysis or explanation, usually of a specified length.

Discussion

Discussion methods are a variety of forums for open-ended, collaborative exchange of ideas among a teacher and students or among students for the purpose of furthering students' thinking, learning, problem solving, understanding, or literary appreciation. Participants present multiple points of view, respond to the ideas of others, and reflect on their own ideas in an effort to build their knowledge, understanding, or interpretation of the matter at hand.

Discussions may occur among members of a small group, or whole class and be teacher-led or student-led. They frequently involve discussion of a written text, though discussion can also focus on a problem, issue, or topic that has its basis in a “text” in the larger sense of the term (e.g., a discipline, the media, a societal norm). Other terms for discussions used for pedagogical purposes are instructional conversations (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988) and substantive conversations (Newmann, 1990).

A defining feature of discussion is that students have considerable agency in the construction of knowledge, understanding, or interpretation. In other words, they have considerable “interpretive authority” for evaluating the plausibility or validity of participants' responses.

Hybrid Assignment

Hybrid assignments are the combination of quiz and essay assignments. This type of assignment allows the instructor to conduct an examination consisting of both quiz and essay tests.