4.8 Work Samples

Provide samples of exemplary and unacceptable assignments, discussion posts, etc. While it is not necessary for every assignment or activity, consider providing these for each major assignment/project as an additional guide or instruction tool.

Points: 1 (Important)

Overview

Sharing examples of student work can often be more concrete and clear for helping students understand how to succeed on an activity or assignment in your course, even more so than a rubric or checklist alone. As mentioned in standard 4.5, this can make your course activities and assignments more transparent for students, improving their academic success, self-confidence, and employer-valued skills.

Tips

• Model academic integrity.  Obtain permission from the student writer. Allow students to copyright their written assignment.  
• Consider writing a range of samples that illustrate common challenges experienced by students during a lesson or unit.
• Showcase student achievement.  Student samples can reflect the value you place on the learning process in your course. 
• Reserve the sample subject or topic for instructor use. 
• Provide a range of samples that reflect a range of approaches used to complete an assignment.
• Annotate student samples to indicate important aspects of the sample assignment or presentation. Annotations can
• Link to grade criteria or standards,
• Identify a challenge area,
• Credit original thinking or application of course concepts.

Examples

In addition to providing samples of previous students’ papers and other work, you could also share testimonials from students with tips for succeeding in your course. If you do so, have your students do something with the testimonials, such as answer questions on a reflection survey, otherwise they may ignore them. You could also have your students create testimonials at the end of your course as an activity. Just be sure to get their permission to share them with future students and ensure the testimonials are anonymous and appropriate for sharing.

• Sample Beginning of the Semester Self-Assessment: Student Testimonials
• Sample End of Semester Assignment: Advice to Next Year’s Students

Resources

• The Transparency in Learning and Teaching site has guidance on making your course activities, assignments, and assessments clearer to your students, including a Transparent Assignment Template and Checklist.
•  Research
  • A systematic review of the educational uses and effects of exemplars
  • When rubrics aren’t enough: Exploring exemplars and student rubric co-construction
  • Mind the gap! Students’ use of exemplars and detailed rubrics as formative assessment