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How do I create an online assignment?

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Google Classroom  - Creating Assignments and Materials

Google classroom  -, creating assignments and materials, google classroom creating assignments and materials.

Google Classroom: Creating Assignments and Materials

Lesson 2: creating assignments and materials.

/en/google-classroom/getting-started-with-google-classroom/content/

Creating assignments and materials

Google Classroom gives you the ability to create and assign work for your students, all without having to print anything. Questions , essays , worksheets , and readings can all be distributed online and made easily available to your class. If you haven't created a class already, check out our Getting Started with Google Classroom lesson.

Watch the video below to learn more about creating assignments and materials in Google Classroom.

Creating an assignment

Whenever you want to create new assignments, questions, or material, you'll need to navigate to the Classwork tab.

In this tab, you can create assignments and view all current and past assignments. To create an assignment, click the Create button, then select Assignment . You can also select Question if you'd like to pose a single question to your students, or Material if you simply want to post a reading, visual, or other supplementary material.

This will bring up the Assignment form. Google Classroom offers considerable flexibility and options when creating assignments.

Click the buttons in the interactive below to become familiar with the Assignment form.

This is where you'll type the title of the assignment you're creating.

Instructions

If you'd like to include instructions with your assignment, you can type them here.

Here, you can decide how many points an assignment is worth by typing the number in the form. You can also click the drop-down arrow to select Ungraded if you don't want to grade an assignment.

You can select a due date for an assignment by clicking this arrow and selecting a date from the calendar that appears. Students will have until then to submit their work.

In Google Classroom, you can sort your assignments and materials into topics. This menu allows you to select an existing topic or create a new one to place an assignment under.

Attachments

You can attach files from your computer , files from Google Drive , URLs , and YouTube videos to your assignments.

Google Classroom gives you the option of sending assignments to all students or a select number .

Once you're happy with the assignment you've created, click Assign . The drop-down menu also gives you the option to Schedule  an assignment if you'd like it to post it at a later date.

You can attach a rubric to help students know your expectations for the assignment and to give them feedback.

Once you've completed the form and clicked Assign , your students will receive an email notification letting them know about the assignment.

Google Classroom takes all of your assignments and automatically adds them to your Google Calendar. From the Classwork tab, you can click Google Calendar to pull this up and get a better overall view of the timeline for your assignments' due dates.

Using Google Docs with assignments

When creating an assignment, there may often be times when you want to attach a document from Google Docs. These can be helpful when providing lengthy instructions, study guides, and other material.

When attaching these types of files, you'll want to make sure to choose the correct setting for how your students can interact with it . After attaching one to an assignment, you'll find a drop-down menu with three options.

Let's take a look at when you might want to use each of these:

• Students can view file : Use this option if the file is simply something you want your students to view but not make any changes to.
• Students can edit file : This option can be helpful if you're providing a document you want your students to collaborate on or fill out collectively.
• Make a copy for each student : If you're creating a worksheet or document that you want each student to complete individually, this option will create a separate copy of the same document for every student.

Using topics

On the Classwork tab, you can use  topics to sort and group your assignments and material. To create a topic, click the Create button, then select Topic .

Topics can be helpful for organizing your content into the various units you teach throughout the year. You could also use it to separate your content by type , splitting it into homework, classwork, readings, and other topic areas.

In our next lesson , we'll explore how to create quizzes and worksheets with Google Forms, further expanding how you can use Google Classroom with your students.

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Easily distribute, analyze, and grade student work with Assignments for your LMS

Assignments is an application for your learning management system (LMS). It helps educators save time grading and guides students to turn in their best work with originality reports — all through the collaborative power of Google Workspace for Education.

• Get started
• Explore originality reports

Bring your favorite tools together within your LMS

Make Google Docs and Google Drive compatible with your LMS

Simplify assignment management with user-friendly Google Workspace productivity tools

Built with the latest Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standards for robust security and easy installation in your LMS

Save time distributing and grading classwork

Distribute personalized copies of Google Drive templates and worksheets to students

Grade consistently and transparently with rubrics integrated into student work

Add rich feedback faster using the customizable comment bank

Examine student work to ensure authenticity

Compare student work against hundreds of billions of web pages and over 40 million books with originality reports

Make student-to-student comparisons on your domain-owned repository of past submissions when you sign up for the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or Google Workspace for Education Plus

Allow students to scan their own work for recommended citations up to three times

Trust in high security standards

Protect student privacy — data is owned and managed solely by you and your students

Provide an ad-free experience for all your users

Compatible with LTI version 1.1 or higher and meets rigorous compliance standards

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Experience google workspace for education in action. explore premium features in detail via step-by-step demos to get a feel for how they work in the classroom..

“Assignments enable faculty to save time on the mundane parts of grading and...spend more time on providing more personalized and relevant feedback to students.” Benjamin Hommerding , Technology Innovationist, St. Norbert College

Classroom users get the best of Assignments built-in

Find all of the same features of Assignments in your existing Classroom environment

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Explore resources to get up and running

Discover helpful resources to get up to speed on using Assignments and find answers to commonly asked questions.

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Get a quick overview of Assignments to help Educators learn how they can use it in their classrooms.

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Get started guide

Start using Assignments in your courses with this step-by-step guide for instructors.

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Teacher Center Assignments resources

Find educator tools and resources to get started with Assignments.

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How to use Assignments within your LMS

Watch this brief video on how Educators can use Assignments.

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Turn on Assignments in your LMS

Contact your institution’s administrator to turn on Assignments within your LMS.

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How to create and manage online assignments for learners

Developing effective assignments for online learning does not have to be daunting. M aster the art of creating and managing online assignments for learners, whether you are with learners using 1:1 devices in a classroom, teaching hybrid or virtually.

One amazing benefit of today’s K-12 education community is the amount of resources, tips and tools available online from educators just like you. Tapping their experience, we’ll show how to create online assignments using digital tools that offer learners at least as much rigor as the ones you may have taught traditionally. 

As importantly, you will get tips on successfully managing your students during the learning process. Finally, this blog will give you teaching resources, including alternatives to building online lessons from scratch.  

How to plan successful online assignments for learners

An assignment lacking clear structure and substance can spell disaster. Not only will it be harder to manage, but learners may end up frustrated or fail to really learn the material. If not managed well, technology tools can turn into exciting and distracting shiny objects. 

To avoid the “edutainment” trap, ensure that onscreen activities support defined learning objectives tied to your district’s standards. Beginning with a strategically planned lesson provides the foundation for whatever digital tools you choose to incorporate. 

Know your learners and their current needs

The first step is to clarify what skills or knowledge your learners need to master before moving to the next level. Next, consider different types of assignments online for students to see how they could facilitate this learning. 

One brilliant advantage of digital delivery is the ability to tailor assignments to specific learner needs and interests. While selecting which kind of assignment to create, consider what might work best for your learners. Consider specific learners who may need accommodations in content or delivery. 

If you don’t already have data to understand the level of knowledge and prior experience learners have in the subject, consider using a Quizlet, survey or other fact-finding tool. Remember the backdrop of what is going on in the students’ surroundings and lives may have a bearing on their learning needs. Consider circumstances that may be affecting learners personally or in their community. 

Assess your resources including digital tools

Tap your personal teaching experience before exploring digital resources. Consider how your own understanding and knowledge of the subject can best shine through digital tools. 

Having strategies in place can help save time and reduce stress during the process of moving your expertise to an online format. Remember, the extra time put into initial start-up pays off in the long run because digital content can be reused over and over. Lessons in a digital format are shareable, adaptable and updateable.

How to make online assignments for learners

Consider variety and higher-level learning as you build assignments that are both engaging and contribute to long-term student goals. Once your academic aims are clear, look for digital tools designed to adapt to your needs as an educator and enhance what you would do in a non-digital format.

Provide clear and concise instruction

Make sure the assignment includes a logical flow from beginning to end. Organize content with headings and bullet points as well as multimedia that breaks up text. Include measurable objectives so learners can clearly understand expectations for the assignment. In some cases, it may be necessary to provide easy-to-understand instruction for each task learners need to complete. Remember you may not be there to fill in the blanks if you leave out an important detail.

Getting started with a few basics can simplify the process of creating dynamic digital content . Recording short videos is an excellent way to simulate actually being there, especially when teaching concepts asynchronously. To record what is on your computer screen, try a screencast program, like Screencastify or Loom for Education . Here you can include your face and help learners better understand you by watching you speak.  

Along with video and audio recordings, further support deeper understanding of the subject matter with multimedia elements. These can include graphics, animations, digital graphics, p odcasts, interactive quizzes and simulations like trivia games. 

Support learners with orientation and an intuitive system

Even the best instruction and assignments won’t make the learning experience pleasant if students have to spend extra hours figuring out where to find assignments and instructions. Just because students are often tech-savvy does not mean all of them can immediately navigate your school’s LMS unsupported. 

Your online assignment at the beginning of the school term could be a simple one that orients learners while providing the opportunity to get hands-on practice using the system. That helps them get used to the workflow and setup. Frustration is easy to mitigate by structuring assignments and using an intuitive learning platform. One example is Hāpara Workspace with an easy-to-view layout that organizes goals, resources, assessments and rubrics into columns.

Promote interaction and collaboration

At the heart of learning is interacting with peers and collaborating. Include activities and projects that support individuals as they practice engaging and working together with other learners. Some learners who feel more comfortable working alone may need extra encouragement and support. This is an opportunity to promote deeper learning and connection by introducing resources that are relevant to students.

Teachers can quickly share resources with groups, or better yet, give learners the opportunity to add their own resources in Hāpara Workspace. Upload everything from videos, links to apps, images and online articles to Google Docs, Slides, Forms and Drawings into Workspace. Group members can access all these resources for shared activities , assessments and collaborative projects.

Managing online assignments 

Once you have a well-designed assignment with clear instructions tailored to the needs of different learners, it’s essential to give them guidance. The amount of management you need to provide can vary significantly.

Communicate effectively

Clearly communicate with students throughout the learning process all the way through to assessment. Regular communication helps students stay informed and engaged. You can manage learners as they build toward mastery in an online environment with Hāpara tools. 

They provide superior student communication tools, including date reminders for learners and online progress tracking for teachers.

Hāpara Student Dashboard is an online assignment tracker that helps learners develop crucial executive functioning skills. It will help them gain practice organizing their own time, managing and prioritizing their assignments and assessments. 

Educators can help learners build upon these skills by providing formative feedback that encourages students to take risks and learn from mistakes. Directly from Hāpara Teacher Dashboard , you can open a learner’s assignment or assessment and provide personalized support. This timely feedback helps learners move toward their academic goals more quickly and confidently.

Monitor learner progress

Monitor how learners are progressing through the assignment. This can inform you whether you need to check in with a learner. Teacher Dashboard shows each learner’s most recent files and when they last modified it. You can also send due date reminders to the class or individual learners through an instant message in Hāpara Highlights .

Provide personalized and differentiated support 

With Teacher Dashboard, it’s easy to leave personalized feedback in learners’ recent files and share differentiated resources directly to their screens.

Pull from your own Google Drive or create a new Google Doc, Slide or Drawing on the spot to share with the class, a group or an individual learner. 

When a learner can’t find a Google file, teachers can access a learner’s Google Drive with one click in Hāpara. S earch for missing files by title or content and filter to view deleted or unshared files.

Assess and give feedback

Evaluate learners’ understanding and progress with different types of assessment methods, including rubrics, quizzes, peer review and presentations. 

Assessments should provide meaningful feedback for learners and educators alike. Use learner feedback to improve on each new assignment you develop. Data on engagement, task completion rates and learner satisfaction will help you make adjustments to improve a future assignment.

Additional resources for online assignment creation

Several alternatives to building your lessons from the ground up are available. These can save time and hassle. To begin with, Google Assignments is a free online assignment solution. To make this even easier, in Hāpara Highlights, as teachers monitor what learners are doing online and offering personalized support, they can quickly share Google Classroom Assignments, Questions and Materials. 

Finding free assignments online is another option. With the Discover feature in Hāpara Workspace , you can access online assignments other educators have created from around the world. Search thousands of curriculum-aligned Workspaces by standard, subject, grade level or topic. Then copy and modify them to meet your learners’ needs. 

Use AI to plan and teach 

Teachers can also use AI to support learning content development and in class with students.

Among the many ways ChatGPT can be used by teachers is helping them create new material, and generate ideas and quizzes. They can quickly personalize the same content in several ways to reach different learners. For example, high school literacy specialist Amanda Kremnitzer told EdWeek that she used ChatGPT to create outlines for her multiple learners who require them as a supplementary aid.  

Team up on content creation

Consider shouldering the effort and building content together as a team. Individual members of departments or subject-grade level teams can develop the type of content they are best at and share. Or they can collaborate as a group. As mentioned, you can use the Discover option in Hāpara Workspace to find assignments educators from around the world have created. 

If you are looking for a way to create, curate and manage a collection of digital assignments that only your school or district can access, consider Hāpara’s Private Library . With just a click, you can easily distribute your online assignments to educators in your school or district.

Discover why vetting edtech tools for inclusivity matters, learn key questions and criteria, and unlock strategies to leverage edtech for inclusivity.

About the author, sheilamary koch, you might also enjoy, pin it on pinterest.

Create Online Homework on Quizizz

Create, share, and host online homework quizzes and assignments for free on Quizizz!

Why assign homework online?

If you would like to streamline your grading process and provide more personalised support for your students, online homework might be the way to go. When you assign homework online, you can easily allocate and track assessments , quickly provide feedback, and tailor content to meet the specific needs of your students.  As a teacher, making the shift from pen-and-paper homework to online homework can benefit both you and your students. Online homework platforms, such as Quizizz, offer a host of tools that can boost student engagement through interactive questions, audio-visual aids, and gamification .  Whether you’re brainstorming for online math homework or grading responses for online chemistry homework, a platform like Quizizz can support you every step of the way.

Online homework - a win for students

Quizizz enables you to create interactive homework online, so your students can fully immerse themselves in the joy of learning.

Assess anywhere, anytime

Assign quizzes and lessons as homework with a future start time and deadline. Quizizz empowers your students to do their online homework from anywhere, using any device.

Inclusive, accessible design

The fastest finger doesn’t always have to be first. On Quizizz, students can complete their online homework at their own pace. You can also enable ‘Read aloud’ for ELL and elementary students.

Double the engagement

Boost participation and captivate your learners through a range of audio-visual aids including images, gifs, videos, audio clips, and more. Engage a variety of skills through multiple question types.

Double the fun

The road to mastery can be fun and exciting . Students can enjoy attempting their online homework with the Quizizz Leaderboard, memes, music, redemption questions, and power-ups.

Online homework - a win for teachers

Quizizz provides the space for you to create effective and high-quality online homework assignments in just a few minutes.

Import from Library

Gain inspiration from over 30M free online homework activities created by teachers on Quizizz, and import the content you need with a single click.

Learn more about this >

Import from device or Google Drive

Import your presentations, PDFs, Google Slides, Google Forms, and spreadsheets from your Google Drive or device to bring all your resources under one roof.

Use adaptive question banks

Provide every learner with a unique experience by showing them a different set of questions that change with each attempt.

Craft homework using multiple question types

In this classic activity, learners can complete sentences by filling in the blanks with the right answers.

Ask your students to reorder a set of jumbled options in ascending, descending, or chronological order.

Present learners with the opportunity to select one or more correct answers from a list of options.

Gamify your assessment with shuffled text and images that your students can pair together.

Choose between a plain background or an image and watch as students give shape to their thoughts with colors, highlighters, and more.

Motivate learners to think critically by dragging and dropping the right options to complete a sentence.

Let students take center stage with video responses so you can assess their presentation skills.

Check the pulse of your classroom with a fun poll or vote.

Use Lessons to create an instructor-led experience where slides and multimedia are combined with quiz and poll questions.

Engage your students’ higher order thinking skills and encourage them to dig deep with open-ended questions.

Analyze speaking skills by allowing students to voice their answers using the audio response feature.

Prompt your students to choose between a set of drop-down options to fill out the blanks in a piece of text.

With online homework on Quizizz you can

Grade flexibly

Allow Quizizz to grade homework assignments automatically. Or, assess submissions manually by assigning a scaled grade for each question.

Get instant reports

With detailed reports on Quizizz, measure the growth and progress of your students, and share significant milestones with other stakeholders.

Sync with an LMS

Update online homework and grades in the blink of an eye by syncing Quizizz with an LMS like Canvas, Schoology, or Google Classroom.

The best way to ask questions, explore ideas, and let students show what they know.

Use Quizizz for online homework

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Topic sections, grading a simple question, grading even faster with keyboard shortcuts, advanced grading options, annotation and advanced navigation, ai-assisted grading, course management, manage course roster, create an exam, create a homework assignment, create an online assignment, create a programming assignment, create a bubble sheet assignment, create a group assignment, assignment workflow, for students: submit on the gradescope mobile app, for students: submit pdfs on the gradescope website, for students: submitting an online assignment, for students: viewing feedback & requesting regrades, upload scans and associate them with students.

• Review and publish grades

Manage regrade requests

View assignment statistics.

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This video shows the basics of grading with Gradescope. You'll see how to:

• Navigate through submissions for one question.
• Make rubric items.
• Change rubric point values.

In our shortest video, you'll learn how to use keyboard shortcuts to grade even more quickly. We also have a handy image for reference.

This video goes over how to change rubric settings, make student-specific point adjustments and comments, grade in parallel with multiple graders, and create groups of rubric items.

Gradescope offers freehand annotation tools and flexible page viewing to support the instructor’s feedback and grading needs.

This video shows how to annotate directly on a student submission and change the page view to focus on a single question, a whole page, or any other pages in a student submission.

To speed up grading, Gradecope offers answer grouping and AI-Assisted answer grouping features for fixed-template assignments.:

• Answer Groups - Lets instructors manually group and grade student answers instead of grading each student answer one-by-one.
• AI-Assisted Answer Groups - Uses Gradescope’s artificial intelligence to automatically group similar student answers that instructors can review and grade (available only for some question types).

This video shows how to set up, review, and grade student submissions using manual answer grouping or AI-Assisted answer grouping for a fixed-template assignment.

Adding course staff and importing a large number of students is simple to do in Gradescope. Here's the sample roster used in the video.

This video shows how to upload your exam template and create the question outline. Here's the sample template used in the video.

This video shows you how to enable your students to submit their work to Gradescope and how to create the question outline. Gradescope supports both fixed-length (worksheet style) and variable-length (problem sets, projects) student-uploaded assignments. Here's the sample template used in this video.

Online assignments (in public beta) have a variety of question types, such as multiple choice, short answer, check boxes, and file/image uploads, that students can answer directly within the interface by typing, selecting, or uploading their responses.

This video shows how to create questions, set correct answers, and grade submissions for an online assignment.

Gradescope programming assignments work with all programming languages and can be graded manually, with a code autograder, or use a combination of the two. Code similarity reports are also generated to flag potential plagiarism cases for instructors to review.

This video shows how to create a programming assignment, grade submissions with a code autograder or manually, and review code similarity reports for potential plagiarism cases.

For more information on building code autograders, check out our Gradescope Autograder documentation .

Bubble sheet assignments are for multiple choice assignments or exams and come with a bubble sheet template to use. Instructors will predefine an answer key (up to five versions) that Gradescope uses to grade students’ multiple choice responses automatically.

This video shows how to use a bubble sheet template, define the answer key, set scoring defaults for full or partial credit answers, and view assignment statistics or item analysis data.

This video shows you how to create an assignment meant to be completed by a group of students. You will see how both instructors and students set up their group submissions.

This video shows how to submit work to Gradescope as a student via the Gradescope Mobile App.

The Gradescope Mobile App allows students to upload work without the use of a scanner or third party app. This makes uploading handwritten work more convenient and protects students’ privacy by keeping their work in Gradescope. Learn more about the mobile app in our help center .

This video shows how to submit a variable-length assignment (i.e. a homework with no fixed page number) as a student by using the Gradescope website.

Having a high quality scan is an important step in submitting assignments. For students who are scanning handwritten work, we recommend using the Gradescope Mobile App .

This video shows how to complete an online assignment on Gradescope as a student. Online assignment allow students to submit responses to various types of questions directly on the Gradescope site, including questions where students upload an external file.

This video shows how to review published grades, rubrics, and feedback on Gradescope as a student. It also covers how to submit regrade requests as a student, if regrade requests have been enabled for the assignment.

Scanning exams, demonstrated on the ScanSnap ix500 Take a look at our favorite settings for this model.

Newer model here .

After the exams are scanned in, they can be uploaded in batches. We'll attempt to automatically split the scanned pages into submissions. We will then automatically attempt to match each submission to a student in your roster, and you'll be able to manually match any remaining submissions. You can download the two batches used in this video: first and second .

Publish grades

After grading is complete, all data can be downloaded from Gradescope in CSV format. Conveniently, students can be notified of the availability of their graded assignment via Gradescope via email and can review their scores online. If you'd like to disable regrade requests for an assignment, you can do so from the Regrade Requests page.

Once grades have been released, students have the option to submit regrade requests. Gradescope allows instructors to easily change students' grades and submit responses to the requests.

Once grading is complete for an assignment, you can go to the Assignment Statistics page to get further insights into what your students have learned and where they are potentially struggling. You can view statistics at the assignment level or at the question/rubric item level, and you can also tag questions with concepts, learning objectives, book chapters, etc., and then view statistics by tag.

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How to create online quizzes and homework assignments

• Introduction

Single-choice

Yes/no and true/false, multiple-choice, open-ended questions, fill-in-the-blanks, collect documents, drawings, paintings, and sketches, score quizzes and assignments.

• Assign and send reminders

View answers

Announce results and grades.

If life is a journey, learning is the vehicle that propels your students forward and helps them decide where they want to go. 

With schools now closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators have been forced to reevaluate how they communicate with each other, hold classes from the safety of their homes, and keep students learning while they’re at home. 

E-learning provides you with an opportunity to reach students anywhere and keep them engaged whether they’re on the other side of town or halfway around the world. Virtual classrooms — as well as the video conferencing apps that make them possible — transcend traditional barriers that required students and teachers to meet for classes in person. 

Incorporating e-learning tools into your curriculum enables students to access an extensive range of written, audio, and visual learning material without having to deal with unwieldy paper assignments or open multiple links to access information.

Since quizzes and assignments are an essential part of the learning process, Jotform offers an all-in-one solution that allows you to

• Prepare questions in a variety of formats
• Assign them to your students
• Collect their answers
• Calculate their grades

The best part is that you don’t have to be a tech whiz to create a shareable online quiz .

To get a better idea of what Jotform can do, check out this online quiz form template that highlights the different types of questions you can ask.

The sample quiz also includes a form calculation widget that automatically calculates grades based on correct and incorrect responses.

Creating a quiz

You can either build your own test or browse through our template gallery , which contains dozens of ready-made templates that can be tailored to match your needs. Regardless of which option you choose, it only takes a matter of minutes to create a wide range of tests, quizzes, and exams.

If you’d like to build your form from scratch, just open Jotform’s Form Builder and click on the Create Form button on the left side of the page.

From there, all you have to do is choose your preferred layout.

If you prefer to use one of the dozens of quiz templates in our template gallery, this Online Quiz Form template shows the different types of questions you can create in a matter of minutes.

Types of questions

Once you’ve selected a general layout for your quiz, click on the Add Form Element icon on the left side of the blank form.

Scroll through the Form Elements menu that pops up, and you’ll find a wide variety of fields you can place on your form. If you’re not quite sure where to begin, we’ll demonstrate how these fields can create common types of quiz questions.

Single-choice questions allow students to pick a single answer from a short list of choices.

Either the Single Choice or Dropdown form element will come in handy if you want to test your students’ overall knowledge about a certain subject. After placing one of them on your form, all you need to do is type your question and list all of the possible answers, including the only correct one.

Yes-no and true-false questions are common on tests and can be advantageous for your students since there’s a 50-percent chance that they’ll select the correct answer. The Single Choice form element is the best choice for these types of questions. Simply add the field to your form, type the question you want to ask, and include two answer options: “yes” and “no,” or “true” and “false.”

The Multiple Choice form element enables you to ask questions with more than one correct answer and lets students select the answers that they think are right.

If it’s important for you to understand the thought process behind each student’s response, the Short Text or Long Text form elements will allow students to explain why and how they came up with their answer. Once you place either the Short Text or Long Text field on your form, type the question you want to ask or provide an essay prompt for students.

Fill-in-the-blank questions can be particularly useful when you want to gauge how well students understand a specific subject. You can use the Passage Test or Narrative Fields widget to create a sentence, paragraph, or short passage with blank fields that students must fill in.

If you want to build some flexibility into a quiz or test, try the Dynamic Textbox widget. It allows your students to type out any number of answers to a certain question. Unlike traditional test questions that require students to select an answer from a variety of choices, the Dynamic Textbox widget enables your students to get creative, think critically, and provide answers that resonate with them.

With the File Upload form element or Drag-and-Drop Upload feature, you can create a test that allows students to upload files, such as an essay, image, or video. These widgets not only allow your students to upload their work but also enable you to collect answers and multiple documents from a single quiz.

Question tables

Question tables are handy when your class is covering a topic in detail. Our Input Table form element allows you to easily create question tables, as well as add rows and columns in a variety of formats.

For instance, students can type a keyword in one column, mark a checkbox in another one, and select an option from the dropdown menu in an adjacent column.

Once you add your question and type the options in the rows and columns, open the Input Table Properties menu, click on the Fields tab, and set the format for answers in your table using the Input Type section. You can change how responses are formatted and displayed within each column using the Column Types section under the Fields tab in the Input Table Properties menu.

Visual expression

There are times when it’s easier and more effective to ask a question using images, videos, and other graphic elements rather than just text.

Jotform allows you to build a question based on a graph, an image, or even a video by using the Image form element and one of the many video embedding widgets, such as Iframe Embed , Vimeo , or YouTube . After uploading an image or embedding a video, simply add a question beneath it using any format you’d like, such as a single-choice or fill-in-the-blank question.

Image options

If you want to get fancy, Jotform’s Image Radio Button widget allows you to create questions and display responses that include images. All you have to do is type your question, list the image URLs, add labels for each one, and set the size for the images.

If you want to be really creative or give students some room to demonstrate their creativity, Jotform’s Draw on Image widget lets students draw, paint, sketch, and use their own handwriting on tests. You can either provide them a blank space or ask them to draw over a certain image, such as a graph.

Once you place the widget on your form, just type your question and add the image URL.

Connected/correlated questions

Jotform’s flexible features can show certain test questions only if students select specific responses to previous questions. For instance, if you ask a yes-no question, Jotform’s conditional logic capabilities will show specific follow-up questions, based on whether students selected yes or no.

Setting up conditional logic in your form can get a little tricky, so we’ll walk you through the process:

• Create a yes-no question and type the follow-up questions for both yes responses and no responses.
• Click on the Settings tab toward the top of your form, select Conditions from the options menu, and create a new conditional statement.
• Select the Show/Hide Field option and use the panel that appears to set a simple formula that will dictate when certain questions are shown and hidden. You must state what actions will trigger another set of actions to occur.

• Select a question in the dropdown menu next to the IF field that will trigger another set of actions. (In this case, select the yes-no question form field.)
• Select the answer a form respondent must give in the dropdown menu beside the STATE field to trigger an action. (In this case, select the Equal to option.)
• Select the specific response to a question in the dropdown menu beside the VALUE field that’s impacted by a form respondent’s answer. (In this case, select yes. )
• Select what action will be taken as a result of the form respondent’s answer by making a selection in the dropdown menu next to the DO field. (In this case, select Show from the available options.)
• Select which form field will be impacted by an action in the dropdown menu next to the FIELD field. (In this case, choose the follow-up question for a yes response to the original question.)
• Create a conditional statement for a no response to your question by repeating these steps.

Creating a test and getting it to your students is only half the battle. Once they’ve completed your test and submitted it, you still have to review the responses from each student one by one, right?

Jotform can not only help you create a wide range of quizzes, tests, and assignments but also calculate grades once students complete their work. This prevents you from spending hours on grading or inadvertently miscalculating a student’s grade.

As soon as an assignment, test, or quiz is submitted to you, Jotform can automatically calculate a grade based on how many questions were answered correctly and incorrectly.

Just so you know…

Jotform can’t calculate scores for certain questions, such as those where students must upload files or type in their own answers.

Before you set up the grade calculation process, it’s important to assign values — or points — for correct and incorrect answers to each question. To do this, select a question, click on the Properties icon, and switch on the Calculation Values option. Use the Calculation Values table to assign points for each answer — the number zero should be used to indicate incorrect answers, while values greater than one should be used for any correct answers.

For example, if a multiple-choice question is worth four points on a test, and there are two correct answers, each correct answer should be assigned a value of two points.

Once you’ve identified the correct and incorrect answers for each question, it’s time to set up the grading process. That may sound daunting, but there’s no need to fret when you have Jotform’s Form Calculation widget.

Once you locate the widget and click on it, go to the Widget Settings menu and use the Add Field button to select all the question fields that now have a designated score. Add a “+” in between each of the form fields and save your settings. When a student fills out and submits your form, this widget will sum up the assigned values for each selected answer.

As a quick reminder, don’t forget to hide the widget from students by clicking on the question’s Properties icon and turning on the Hide field toggle switch under the Advanced tab. Doing this prevents students from viewing or changing their score until they submit their quizzes.

Assign quizzes to students and send reminder emails

Now that you’re a pro at making online quizzes, tests, and assignments, why not spring a pop quiz on your students?

If you’re thinking of sending the quiz to each student one by one, stop what you’re doing right now! Jotform’s new Assign Forms feature enables you to share your form with students and control their access to your quiz.

All you need to do is click on the Publish tab at the top of your online form and select Assign Form from the list of menu options. Paste your students’ email addresses into the Invite People field, and invite all of your students to take the quiz at once.

You can save time and eliminate manual data entry by uploading a CSV file that contains a list of email addresses for your students.

You can then edit their permissions by allowing them to view, edit, or fill in the form. Once you invite your students to take the quiz, you can change their level of access to your quiz by clicking on the Assigned to icon.

Edit their permission settings by using the dropdown menu that appears on the far right side of the row that includes their name.

To ensure that all of your students are notified about the quiz or assignment, schedule automated reminder emails to be sent on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Simply go to the Publish tab toward the top of your form, select Email from the list of menu options, and click on Schedule a Reminder Email. From there, you can customize the reminder email and schedule it to be sent out on certain days and at specific times.

Once students submit their answers to your assignments or quizzes, their form responses will be sent to your Jotform inbox . You can access your inbox by clicking on the form in your My Forms page and selecting Inbox from the list of options.

Jotform can send you an email notification once someone fills out and submits your form test. All you need to do is click on the Settings tab toward the top of the screen and select Emails from the list of menu options. Select Notification Email from the list of available email options, and add your email address to the Recipients Emails field.

It can be nerve-racking for students to wait for their grades. The good news is that tallying up scores and sending them out doesn’t need to take days or even hours. In fact, Jotform can show students their grades as soon as they complete a test, exam, or assignment and submit it to you. It’s important to note, though, that Jotform can’t calculate scores for certain questions, such as those where students must upload files or type in their own answers.

All you need to do is click on the Settings tab near the top of the Form Builder and select Thank You Page from the left sidebar. The Thank You Page appears immediately after a quiz is submitted. You can customize the page, add motivational phrases, and inform your students of their grades. Just select the Form Calculator from the Form Fields dropdown menu to let your students know how they did.

Although nothing beats in-person instruction, online, or distance, learning can not only help you reach students in more places but also develop a flexible curriculum that keeps students engaged when they can’t be in the classroom.

With Jotform, you can create interactive tests that will keep students on their toes and save time for everyone. Students no longer have to write out answers by hand and wait several days for their grades to arrive. More important, Jotform automatically calculates grades for most question types once students complete an online test and submit it, reducing the amount of manual work that teachers need to do.

Stop relying on old-school methods — and paper tests — to keep tech-savvy students engaged in a 21st-century classroom. Give Jotform a try today and surprise them by being the teacher with the coolest online tests on campus.

Thank you for helping improve the Jotform Blog. 🎉

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Best reliable 2022 assignment creator in Melbourne When it comes to doing tough assignment questions by own, students get puzzled between work and academic responsibilities and seek online help for their assignments in Melbourne to get the best grades in their studies. Allassignmenthelp is reliable and easily accessible when it comes to search assignment helpers in Melbourne. Our online task helping creators gives students with online tutorial help as they work on their homework. The main challenge students face is help in complex subjects like physics, algebra, and science which leads them in need of professional help to qualify for the next level of education.

Now there is Random Quiz, a Google Sheets add-on that creates an online quiz that gives each student a different quiz. Visit Google Sheets, download the Random Quiz add-on to experience a great piece of software.

As an elementary school teacher, I tend to use technology a lot even before the pandemic. But as all of my fellow teachers can attest to, it has been a challenge to stay connected with our students and try to carry on the same level of education as it was before the pandemic. I obviously knew that it would be impossible to keep the same standards, but I was at least trying to come up with solutions that would boost the education level as high as possible. I was a huge fan of ed-tech solutions, so I started looking for some options in order to conduct quizzes online, in a fun and secure way. Jotform truly knocked the ball out of the park with this extremely easy to use quiz builder, I also love the fact that it makes taking quizzes and finishing assignments easier for my students. It's in times like this, I notice how wonderful and helpful technology is when it comes to education.

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Creating and Adapting Assignments for Online Courses

Online teaching requires a deliberate shift in how we communicate, deliver information, and offer feedback to our students. How do you effectively design and modify your assignments to accommodate this shift? The ways you introduce students to new assignments, keep them on track, identify and remedy confusion, and provide feedback after an assignment is due must be altered to fit the online setting. Intentional planning can help you ensure assignments are optimally designed for an online course and expectations are clearly communicated to students.  

When teaching online, it can be tempting to focus on the differences from in-person instruction in terms of adjustments, or what you need to make up for. However, there are many affordances of online assignments that can deepen learning and student engagement. Students gain new channels of interaction, flexibility in when and where they access assignments, more immediate feedback, and a student-centered experience (Gayten and McEwen, 2007; Ragupathi, 2020; Robles and Braathen, 2002). Meanwhile, ample research has uncovered that online assignments benefit instructors through automatic grading, better measurement of learning, greater student involvement, and the storing and reuse of assignments. 

In Practice

While the purpose and planning of online assignments remain the same as their in-person counterparts, certain adjustments can make them more effective. The strategies outlined below will help you design online assignments that support student success while leveraging the benefits of the online environment. 

Align assignments to learning outcomes. 

All assignments work best when they align with your learning outcomes. Each online assignment should advance students' achievement of one or more of your specific outcomes. You may be familiar with  Bloom's Taxonomy,  a well-known framework that organizes and classifies learning objectives based on the actions students take to demonstrate their learning. Online assignments have the added advantage of flexing students' digital skills, and Bloom's has been revamped for the digital age to incorporate technology-based tasks into its categories. For example, students might search for definitions online as they learn and remember course materials, tweet their understanding of a concept, mind map an analysis, or create a podcast. 

See a  complete description of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy  for further ideas. 

Provide authentic assessments. 

Authentic assessments call for relevant, purposeful actions that mimic the real-life tasks students may encounter in their lives and careers beyond the university. They represent a shift away from infrequent high-stakes assessments that tend to evaluate the acquisition of knowledge over application and understanding. Authentic assessments allow students to see the connection between what they're learning and how that learning is used and contextualized outside the virtual walls of the learning management system, thereby increasing their motivation and engagement. 

There are many ways to incorporate authenticity into an assignment, but three main strategies are to use  authentic audiences, content, and formats . A student might, for example, compose a business plan for an audience of potential investors, create a patient care plan that translates medical jargon into lay language, or propose a safe storage process for a museum collection.  

Authentic assessments in online courses can easily incorporate the internet or digital tools as part of an authentic format. Blogs, podcasts, social media posts, and multimedia artifacts such as infographics and videos represent authentic formats that leverage the online context. 

Learn more about  authentic assessments in Designing Assessments of Student Learning . 

Design for inclusivity and accessibility. 

Adopting universal design principles at the outset of course creation will ensure your material is accessible to all students. As you plan your assignments, it's important to keep in mind barriers to access in terms of tools, technology, and cost. Consider which tools achieve your learning outcomes with the fewest barriers. 

Offering a variety of assignment formats is one way to ensure students can demonstrate learning in a manner that works best for them. You can provide options within an individual assignment, such as allowing students to submit either written text or an audio recording or to choose from several technologies or platforms when completing a project. 

Be mindful of how you frame and describe an assignment to ensure it doesn't disregard populations through exclusionary language or use culturally specific references that some students may not understand. Inclusive language for all genders and racial or ethnic backgrounds can foster a sense of belonging that fully invests students in the learning community.  

Learn more about  Universal Design of Learning  and  Shaping a Positive Learning Environment . 

Design to promote academic integrity online. 

Much like incorporating universal design principles at the outset of course creation, you can take a proactive approach to academic integrity online. Design assignments that limit the possibilities for students to use the work of others or receive prohibited outside assistance.  

Provide   authentic assessments  that are more difficult to plagiarize because they incorporate recent events or unique contexts and formats. 

Scaffold assignments  so that students can work their way up to a final product by submitting smaller portions and receiving feedback along the way. 

Lower the stakes  by providing more frequent formative assessments in place of high-stakes, high-stress assessments. 

In addition to proactively creating assignments that deter cheating, there are several university-supported tools at your disposal to help identify and prevent cheating.  

Learn more about these tools in  Strategies and Tools for Academic Integrity in Online Environments . 

Communicate detailed instructions and clarify expectations. 

When teaching in-person, you likely dedicate class time to introducing and explaining an assignment; students can ask questions or linger after class for further clarification. In an online class, especially in  asynchronous  online classes, you must anticipate where students' questions might arise and account for them in the assignment instructions.  

The  Carmen course template  addresses some of students' common questions when completing an assignment. The template offers places to explain the assignment's purpose, list out steps students should take when completing it, provide helpful resources, and detail academic integrity considerations.  

Providing a rubric will clarify for students how you will evaluate their work, as well as make your grading more efficient. Sharing examples of previous student work (both good and bad) can further help students see how everything should come together in their completed products. 

Technology Tip

Enter all  assignments and due dates  in your Carmen course to increase transparency. When assignments are entered in Carmen, they also populate to Calendar, Syllabus, and Grades areas so students can easily track their upcoming work. Carmen also allows you to  develop rubrics  for every assignment in your course.  

Promote interaction and collaboration. 

Frequent student-student interaction in any course, but particularly in online courses, is integral to developing a healthy learning community that engages students with course material and contributes to academic achievement. Online education has the inherent benefit of offering multiple channels of interaction through which this can be accomplished. 

Carmen  Discussions   are a versatile platform for students to converse about and analyze course materials, connect socially, review each other's work, and communicate asynchronously during group projects. 

Peer review  can be enabled in Carmen  Assignments  and  Discussions .  Rubrics  can be attached to an assignment or a discussion that has peer review enabled, and students can use these rubrics as explicit criteria for their evaluation. Alternatively, peer review can occur within the comments of a discussion board if all students will benefit from seeing each other's responses. 

Group projects  can be carried out asynchronously through Carmen  Discussions  or  Groups , or synchronously through Carmen's  Chat function  or  CarmenZoom . Students (and instructors) may have apprehensions about group projects, but well-designed group work can help students learn from each other and draw on their peers’ strengths. Be explicit about your expectations for student interaction and offer ample support resources to ensure success on group assignments. 

Learn more about  Student Interaction Online .

Choose technology wisely. 

The internet is a vast and wondrous place, full of technology and tools that do amazing things. These tools can give students greater flexibility in approaching an assignment or deepen their learning through interactive elements. That said, it's important to be selective when integrating external tools into your online course.  

Look first to your learning outcomes and, if you are considering an external tool, determine whether the technology will help students achieve these learning outcomes. Unless one of your outcomes is for students to master new technology, the cognitive effort of using an unfamiliar tool may distract from your learning outcomes.  

Carmen should ultimately be the foundation of your course where you centralize all materials and assignments. Thoughtfully selected external tools can be useful in certain circumstances. 

Explore supported tools 

There are many  university-supported tools  and resources already available to Ohio State users. Before looking to external tools, you should explore the available options to see if you can accomplish your instructional goals with supported systems, including the  eLearning toolset , approved  CarmenCanvas integrations , and the  Microsoft365 suite .  

If a tool is not university-supported, keep in mind the security and accessibility implications, the learning curve required to use the tool, and the need for additional support resources. If you choose to use a new tool, provide links to relevant help guides on the assignment page or post a video tutorial. Include explicit instructions on how students can get technical support should they encounter technical difficulties with the tool. 

Adjustments to your assignment design can guide students toward academic success while leveraging the benefits of the online environment.  

Effective assignments in online courses are:  

Aligned to course learning outcomes 

Authentic and reflect real-life tasks 

Accessible and inclusive for all learners 

Designed to encourage academic integrity 

Transparent with clearly communicated expectations 

Designed to promote student interaction and collaboration 

Supported with intentional technology tools 

• Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (e-book)
• Making Your Course Accessible for All Learners (workshop reccording)
• Writing Multiple Choice Questions that Demand Critical Thinking (article)

Learning Opportunities

Conrad, D., & Openo, J. (2018).  Assessment strategies for online learning: Engagement and authenticity . AU Press. Retrieved from  https://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b8475002~S7 

Gaytan, J., & McEwen, B. C. (2007). Effective online instructional and assessment strategies.  American Journal of Distance Education ,  21 (3), 117–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923640701341653   

Mayer, R. E. (2001).  Multimedia learning . New York: Cambridge University Press.  

Ragupathi, K. (2020). Designing Effective Online Assessments Resource Guide . National University of Singapore. Retrieved from  https://www.nus.edu.sg/cdtl/docs/default-source/professional-development-docs/resources/designing-online-assessments.pdf  

Robles, M., & Braathen, S. (2002). Online assessment techniques.  Delta Pi Epsilon Journal ,  44 (1), 39–49.  https://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eft&AN=507795215&site=eds-live&scope=site  

Swan, K., Shen, J., & Hiltz, S. R. (2006). Assessment and collaboration in online learning.  Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks ,  10 (1), 45.  

TILT Higher Ed. (n.d.).  TILT Examples and Resources . Retrieved from   https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources  

Tallent-Runnels, M. K., Thomas, J. A., Lan, W. Y., Cooper, S., Ahern, T. C., Shaw, S. M., & Liu, X. (2006). Teaching Courses Online: A Review of the Research.  Review of Educational Research ,  76 (1), 93–135.  https://www-jstor-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/stable/3700584  

Walvoord, B. & Anderson, V.J. (2010).  Effective Grading : A Tool for Learning and Assessment in College: Vol. 2nd ed . Jossey-Bass.  https://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b8585181~S7

Related Teaching Topics

Designing assessments of student learning, strategies and tools for academic integrity in online environments, student interaction online, universal design for learning: planning with all students in mind, related toolsets, carmencanvas, search for resources.

How to Write a Perfect Assignment: Step-By-Step Guide

Table of contents

• 1 How to Structure an Assignment?
• 2.1 The research part
• 2.2 Planning your text
• 2.3 Writing major parts
• 3 Expert Tips for your Writing Assignment
• 4 Will I succeed with my assignments?
• 5 Conclusion

How to Structure an Assignment?

To cope with assignments, you should familiarize yourself with the tips on formatting and presenting assignments or any written paper, which are given below. It is worth paying attention to the content of the paper, making it structured and understandable so that ideas are not lost and thoughts do not refute each other.

If the topic is free or you can choose from the given list — be sure to choose the one you understand best. Especially if that could affect your semester score or scholarship. It is important to select an  engaging title that is contextualized within your topic. A topic that should captivate you or at least give you a general sense of what is needed there. It’s easier to dwell upon what interests you, so the process goes faster.

To construct an assignment structure, use outlines. These are pieces of text that relate to your topic. It can be ideas, quotes, all your thoughts, or disparate arguments. Type in everything that you think about. Separate thoughts scattered across the sheets of Word will help in the next step.

Then it is time to form the text. At this stage, you have to form a coherent story from separate pieces, where each new thought reinforces the previous one, and one idea smoothly flows into another.

Main Steps of Assignment Writing

These are steps to take to get a worthy paper. If you complete these step-by-step, your text will be among the most exemplary ones.

The research part

If the topic is unique and no one has written about it yet, look at materials close to this topic to gain thoughts about it. You should feel that you are ready to express your thoughts. Also, while reading, get acquainted with the format of the articles, study the details, collect material for your thoughts, and accumulate different points of view for your article. Be careful at this stage, as the process can help you develop your ideas. If you are already struggling here, pay for assignment to be done , and it will be processed in a split second via special services. These services are especially helpful when the deadline is near as they guarantee fast delivery of high-quality papers on any subject.

If you use Google to search for material for your assignment, you will, of course, find a lot of information very quickly. Still, the databases available on your library’s website will give you the clearest and most reliable facts that satisfy your teacher or professor. Be sure you copy the addresses of all the web pages you will use when composing your paper, so you don’t lose them. You can use them later in your bibliography if you add a bit of description! Select resources and extract quotes from them that you can use while working. At this stage, you may also create a  request for late assignment if you realize the paper requires a lot of effort and is time-consuming. This way, you’ll have a backup plan if something goes wrong.

Planning your text

Assemble a layout. It may be appropriate to use the structure of the paper of some outstanding scientists in your field and argue it in one of the parts. As the planning progresses, you can add suggestions that come to mind. If you use citations that require footnotes, and if you use single spacing throughout the paper and double spacing at the end, it will take you a very long time to make sure that all the citations are on the exact pages you specified! Add a reference list or bibliography. If you haven’t already done so, don’t put off writing an essay until the last day. It will be more difficult to do later as you will be stressed out because of time pressure.

Writing major parts

It happens that there is simply no mood or strength to get started and zero thoughts. In that case, postpone this process for 2-3 hours, and, perhaps, soon, you will be able to start with renewed vigor. Writing essays is a great (albeit controversial) way to improve your skills. This experience will not be forgotten. It will certainly come in handy and bring many benefits in the future. Do your best here because asking for an extension is not always possible, so you probably won’t have time to redo it later. And the quality of this part defines the success of the whole paper.

Writing the major part does not mean the matter is finished. To review the text, make sure that the ideas of the introduction and conclusion coincide because such a discrepancy is the first thing that will catch the reader’s eye and can spoil the impression. Add or remove anything from your intro to edit it to fit the entire paper. Also, check your spelling and grammar to ensure there are no typos or draft comments. Check the sources of your quotes so that your it is honest and does not violate any rules. And do not forget the formatting rules.

with the right tips and guidance, it can be easier than it looks. To make the process even more straightforward, students can also use an assignment service to get the job done. This way they can get professional assistance and make sure that their assignments are up to the mark. At PapersOwl, we provide a professional writing service where students can order custom-made assignments that meet their exact requirements.

Expert Tips for your Writing Assignment

Want to write like a pro? Here’s what you should consider:

• Save the document! Send the finished document by email to yourself so you have a backup copy in case your computer crashes.
• Don’t wait until the last minute to complete a list of citations or a bibliography after the paper is finished. It will be much longer and more difficult, so add to them as you go.
• If you find a lot of information on the topic of your search, then arrange it in a separate paragraph.
• If possible, choose a topic that you know and are interested in.
• Believe in yourself! If you set yourself up well and use your limited time wisely, you will be able to deliver the paper on time.
• Do not copy information directly from the Internet without citing them.

Writing assignments is a tedious and time-consuming process. It requires a lot of research and hard work to produce a quality paper. However, if you are feeling overwhelmed or having difficulty understanding the concept, you may want to consider getting accounting homework help online . Professional experts can assist you in understanding how to complete your assignment effectively. PapersOwl.com offers expert help from highly qualified and experienced writers who can provide you with the homework help you need.

Will I succeed with my assignments?

Anyone can learn how to be good at writing: follow simple rules of creating the structure and be creative where it is appropriate. At one moment, you will need some additional study tools, study support, or solid study tips. And you can easily get help in writing assignments or any other work. This is especially useful since the strategy of learning how to write an assignment can take more time than a student has.

Therefore all students are happy that there is an option to  order your paper at a professional service to pass all the courses perfectly and sleep still at night. You can also find the sample of the assignment there to check if you are on the same page and if not — focus on your papers more diligently.

So, in the times of studies online, the desire and skill to research and write may be lost. Planning your assignment carefully and presenting arguments step-by-step is necessary to succeed with your homework. When going through your references, note the questions that appear and answer them, building your text. Create a cover page, proofread the whole text, and take care of formatting. Feel free to use these rules for passing your next assignments.

When it comes to writing an assignment, it can be overwhelming and stressful, but Papersowl is here to make it easier for you. With a range of helpful resources available, Papersowl can assist you in creating high-quality written work, regardless of whether you’re starting from scratch or refining an existing draft. From conducting research to creating an outline, and from proofreading to formatting, the team at Papersowl has the expertise to guide you through the entire writing process and ensure that your assignment meets all the necessary requirements.

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Table of Contents

Creating an online assignment, adding your questions, short answer, free response, multiple choice, file upload, question formatting, adding images, adding explanations, choosing when/if explanations appear, adding subquestions and removing questions, hiding questions and responses, randomizing questions and answers for students, setting a time limit for the assignment, extending dates and time limits, displaying answers immediately, displaying answers after the due date, submission interface, submitting work on students' behalf, auto-graded fields, manually graded fields, publishing grades, deleting submissions, regrading auto-graded questions, exporting assignment submissions.

• ​Assignment Workflow

Online Assignments (Beta)

Currently in beta, online assignments let you create questions directly on Gradescope. Students will be able to log in and submit responses within the Gradescope interface. For some types of questions (multiple-choice, select all, and short answer), you can also indicate the correct answer ahead of time, and student submissions will be automatically graded. However, though you can autograde certain fields, AI-assisted grading and answer-grouping are not possible in Online Assignments at this time.

Assignment Setup

• On your course’s homepage, click Assignments (left sidebar) and then Create Assignment  (bottom right). Select Online Assignment from the list of assignment types when it appears. 
• Add an assignment title, set a release date, due date, and, optionally, a late due date. If you’re making a test assignment that students should not see, make sure to set the Release Date far in the future, or use a demo course that has no real students in it.
• (Optional) To give students a set number of minutes to submit work, select  Enforce Time Limit.  Then, use the  Maximum Time Permitted  field to set your time limit.
• (Optional) To allow groups of students to submit the assignment together, select the  Enable Group Submission ,  and set your preferred group size.
• Click  Create Assignment . This will take you to the  Assignment Outline  where you add your questions.
• On the left side of your Assignment Outline , enter your first question title (optional) and point value. You can preview your exam on the right side of your screen as you add questions. While you're creating your outline, note that all instructors and TAs in your course will be able to edit it too. If multiple people are editing the outline at once, all the users will see a warning message at the top of your screen.
• Add your question in the  Problem field.

• From the dropdown, select the way you’d like students to answer this question: short answer, free response, multiple-choice, select all, or file upload. You can add multiple answer fields to a question if you’d like, but be sure each answer field is on a line by itself. See the next section of this guide for more on how the answer input fields work.
• Click the Add Question  button after each question to insert the next problem or task in the assignment along with the point value and answer input fields, repeating the process explained in Steps 1-3. Click the Add Subquestion button after a question to add a child question beneath it and create a group. Note that when you make a group of questions, the top-level question can only be used for description text, and students cannot submit any input fields within that question. For instance, if you have Questions 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3, students can only submit answers to those, and not to Question 1, the parent of the group.
• When you're finished, click  Save . If you close your outline before saving it, the questions you added and changes you made will still be there when you return. However, even if the assignment release date has passed, your students and the other instructors in your course will not be able to see the latest questions or changes until you click Save Assignment either in the footer or after the last question in the outline. If you return to your outline and do not want to keep your unsaved changes, click the up arrow next to the Save Assignment button in the footer, and then click Discard Changes when the option appears.

Answer input fields

We currently support Multiple Choice, Select All, Short Answer, Free Response, and File Upload fields. For Multiple Choice, Select All, and Short Answer questions, you’ll supply the correct answer, and we’ll automatically grade your students’ responses. A question can have multiple input fields, in which case the student must get all of them correct to receive credit. Input markup must be the only thing on the line that it occurs on. This means that you currently cannot have text before or after an input field.

• Choosing "Short Answer" from the Insert Field dropdown or adding this Markdown syntax [____](answer)  to a question's Problem Field gives students a text box where they can enter a short numerical answer or a response that is only a few words.
• To allow Gradescope to autograde answers, you can put the correct answer inside the parentheses.
• Correct answers in the parentheses can be text or numbers.
• Make sure to put the answer field on a separate line, with no text before or after it.
• At the moment, Gradescope can only accept one correct text answer in a short answer field.
• Students will be autograded based on whether or not their response exactly matches the text you entered as the correct answer.
• However, you do have options on the assignment's Settings page to ignore leading and trailing whitespace and case-sensitivity.
• If there is only one correct numerical answer, you can simply put that numerical answer inside the parentheses.
• If you want Gradescope to accept any mathematical equivalent of the correct answer, add = and +-0 to the answer input field. Adding = and +-0 on either side of the correct answer prompts Gradescope to accept any mathematical equivalent of the correct answer. Equivalents can be written using any of these supported operators: +, -, *, /, %, ^, ( ). See tip below.
• If you want Gradescope to accept any mathematical equivalent of the correct answer within an acceptable margin of error , you can add = , +- , and then a value to the answer input field. Adding = , +- , and the additional value prompts Gradescope to accept any mathematical equivalent of any value that falls within the given range. Equivalents can be written using any of these supported operators: +, -, *, /, %, ^, ( ). See tip below. Formatting short answer input fields: Below are some examples to help you format short answer input fields. [____](2) means Gradescope will only accept "2" as the correct answer [____](=2+-0) means Gradescope will accept 2, 2.0, 2.00, 2/1, "1+1", "2*1", "2^1" etc. [____](=2+-0.2) means Gradescope will accept any mathematical equivalent of any value between 1.8 and 2.2
• Choosing "Free Response" from the Insert Field dropdown or adding this Markdown syntax |____|  to a question's Problem Field gives students a text box where they can enter multi-paragraph text answers to that question.
• If a question has any free-response boxes, they won’t be automatically graded and that question must be graded by hand.
• Choosing "Multiple Choice" from the Insert Field dropdown or adding the Markdown syntax shown below will let students click on a single correct answer from a group of options.
• ( ) description  creates a choice.
• (X) answer  designates the correct answer among the choices.
• Don’t leave blank lines between choices, or it’ll start a new group of choices.
• Choosing "Select All" from the Insert Field dropdown or adding the Markdown syntax shown below will let students click on all the possible correct answers from a group of options.
• [ ] description  creates a choice.
• [X] answer  designates a correct answer among the choices.
• Student must mark all required answers to get points.
• Choosing "File Upload" from the Insert Field dropdown or adding this |files|  Markdown syntax lets students upload any file type (PDFs, images, code) as part of their response. 
• File Upload fields also let instructors combine online questions and questions where students upload photos of handwritten work (or code files) within the same Gradescope assignment.
• Though you can view and grade the uploaded files, you will not be able to mark on or annotate them.

Any normal text you type in the question box will be passed through as text. You can use Markdown and LaTeX expressions in your questions and students can use LaTeX in their responses (denote LaTeX with  $$ , eg.  $$x^2$$ ). You can see a preview of what the assignment will look like to students in the pane on the right.

Check out our guides on Markdown and LaTeX for more details on how to use these.

• In the Assignment editor, go to the relevant question.
• Select  Insert Images. This will open the Insert Image dialog.
• When prompted, select an image file from your device's file browser. Select Open .
• (Optional) To add alt text to the image, enter text for the Image Description (Alt Text).
• To upload the image, select  Upload.
• To insert an image or graphic using Markdown syntax , insert the image URL link in the question's Problem field. Here's an example of inserting an image using Markdown syntax:  
• Repeat steps 1 - 3 as needed.

If you'd like, you can add explanations for the correct answer and choose when/if you'd like students to see these explanations. To add an explanation to a question, put two square brackets ( [[ ]] ) around the explanation text. Make sure to put the explanation on a separate line, with no text before or after it. For multiple-line explanations, use brackets around each line of the explanation. Empty lines between explanations will break them up into two separate blocks. There isn’t currently a way to provide explanations for incorrect answers. However, you can add details about incorrect answer options to the explanation for the correct answer.

To choose when/if students see an explanation depends on whether the two Answer Visibility boxes are checked on the assignment's Settings page.

• If only " show explanations when students answer a question correctly " is checked, students will see the explanation as soon as they select the correct answer for an auto-graded question (e.g., multiple-choice or select all) or as soon as you grade a manually graded question with a full-credit rubric item. Students will see this explanation right away, even if the due date hasn't passed yet and even if grades for the assignment haven't been published yet. However, students who select incorrect answers or who don't get full credit would never see the explanation if only this checkbox is checked.
• If only " show answers after due date " is checked, all students will see explanations, regardless of whether they selected the correct or incorrect answer, and regardless of their score. However, they will only see these explanations after the due date or late due date (if one is set), and after grades for the assignment are published.
• If both checkboxes are checked, students who have the correct answer or full credit will see explanations right away, and students who have the incorrect answer will see explanations after the due date has passed and grades have been published.
• If neither checkbox is checked, no students will ever see any explanations.

You can add new questions or subquestions using the  Insert Question  and  Add Subquestion  buttons below each question. The dashed line with an icon, when hovered over, turns into an “Insert Question” button, which inserts a question at the spot where the line is (in between two questions).

Adding a subquestion turns the question into a question group and adds a child question of the current question. Note that when you make a group of questions, the top-level question can only be used for description text, and students cannot submit any input fields within that question. i.e. If you have questions 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3, students can only submit answers to those, and not to Question 1, the parent of the group.

Finally, you can delete questions using the  Delete Question  button. Deleting all parts of a question group will revert that question group to a regular question (i.e. inputs will work again).

• If you’d like to, you can choose to hide an Online Assignment’s questions and students’ responses after the time limit expires or the due date passes (if no time limit is set). To do this, first, open your assignment and navigate to the  Assignment Settings  page from the left side panel.
• On your  Assignment Settings  page, under  Questions and Student Work Visibility  select “Show after grades are published.”
• Then click the  Save  button. Questions and students’ responses will now be hidden after the time limit expires or the due date passes. Students will regain access once you click  Publish Grades .

To assist in preventing unwanted collusion between students, Gradescope allows for questions, answer options, or both to be randomized when distributed. By default, the randomization settings are disabled. To enable them:

• Once the Online Assignment has been created, access the assignment Settings in the left sidebar.
• Shuffle Questions - Top-level questions (1, 2, 3…) will be ordered randomly for each student. Subquestions will remain in their original order (1.1, 1.2 - 2.1, 2.2). 
• Shuffle Choices - The answers to any multiple choice or select all questions will be listed in random order. 
• Select Save . 

When you are ready to grade the assignment, the student submissions will not appear randomized when viewed by an instructor, TA, or reader. If you would like to see how the questions or answers were displayed for an individual student,

• Access the Manage Submissions or Review Grades page.
• Select the name of the student.
• The student’s submission, and the randomization they were given, will be displayed.

The optional  Maximum Time Permitted  feature lets you give students a set number of minutes to complete an Online Assignment from the moment they open it and see the questions. When students open an assignment with a time limit, they’re told how long they have to complete it and can then confirm that they’d like to begin. Students will then see a countdown timer on their screen as they complete the assignment. They can hide the timer if they don’t want to see it and reveal again if they change their mind. Students can update their answers any number of times. The most recently submitted answer for each question at the end of the time limit will be saved for you to view and grade. Because students only have a finite amount of time to submit work, timed assignments reduce the risk of students cheating or working together to get the answers.

If you want to extend or modify when a specific student can start, work on, or submit an assignment, check out Extending assignment release dates, due dates, late due dates, and time limits .

To learn how to give a student more time on all timed assignments in a course, check out Extending time limits at the course level . Currently, at the course level, you can only give blanket time limit extensions. You cannot give a student an extension on all assignment release dates, due dates, or late due dates in a course at once. You would need to give the student those extensions on each assignment. 

By default, students won’t see their feedback and scores until you click the Publish Grades button. For formative assessments in which you'd like students to see their results and feedback for auto-graded questions immediately (e.g., for multiple-choice, select all, or short-answer/fill-in-the-blank questions) you should click Publish Grades from the Review Grades page before you release the assignment to students. Here's how to do that.

• Create your Online Assignment and be sure to fill in the correct answers where applicable. Before you release the assignment to students, click Review Grades in the left side panel ( Course > Assignment > Review Grades ). This will take you to the Review Grades page for that assignment.
• On your  Review Grades  page, click the Publish Grades button in the bottom right. Now, as soon as a student saves an answer, they will immediately see whether that answer is correct or incorrect. See the note and image below for more on incorrect answer notifications. Incorrect answers: If a student answers incorrectly, they will only see that their answer was incorrect. They will not see the correct answers unless you opt to display answers after the due date . However, students can resubmit and update answers until the due date passes or the time limit expiration.

If you’d like students to see the correct answers for each auto-graded question (e.g., multiple-choice, select all, and short answer questions) after the due date has passed (even if they did not get the correct answer), you can check the "Show answers after due date box" on the assignment’s  Settings  page. Please keep in mind that even if you check "Show answers after the due date," you still need to click Publish Grades on the Review Grades page for students to see the correct answers. Also, if you set a late due date, students will only see correct answers after the late due date has passed , not after the due date.

Submitting the assignment

Once you’ve created the assignment, your students will be able to log in and enter their responses within the submission period. Students can use LaTeX in their responses to free response questions, and they can upload files of any type to file upload questions. As students complete each question, they’ll see a progress indicator telling them how many questions they’ve answered and how many questions they have left. 

The way students save or submit answers is slightly different based on whether or not the assignment has a time limit:

• In  timed  assignments, students’ answers will be autosaved as they enter them. They will not have a button to submit each one. Students will also see a countdown timer (which can be hidden) in the top right corner of their screen. 
• In  non-timed  assignments, students will need to click the  Submit Answer  button as they finish each question. They’ll see a timestamp next to each answer they submit. Along the top of their screen, they can also track how many questions they’ve answered or started but haven’t submitted. Any answers they haven’t submitted will have an asterisk next to them in their assignment. 

During the allotted time (if you set a time limit) and submission period, students can submit or update their answers as many times as they need to. You will only see students’ final answers for each question.

When students log in, they will see a link on their course dashboard to submit an online assignment. If they have already submitted, the link will take them to their submission, and there will be a “Resubmit” button that they can use to resubmit as many times as they’d like before the deadline or time limit expiration. 

You can preview what the student submission interface will look like by going to the assignment’s  Manage Submissions page and clicking  New Submission . Note that this interface will automatically show the instructor whether the answer was correct or incorrect, but students will not see this unless you’ve published grades.

Instructors and TAs can submit work to an online assignment on behalf of students at any point, regardless of any set due dates or time limits.

• Open your assignment. Click the left side panel to expand it (if it isn’t already) and select  Manage Submissions . This will take you to a list of submissions that have been made to this assignment so far.
• Click the  New Submission  button at the bottom of the screen.
• On the submission page, type or select the student’s name from the dropdown under the assignment title.
• Enter or select the responses your student has given you. Upload any of their documents to the appropriate  Upload File  question. Click the  Submit Answer  button as you complete each question. If your student had existing responses that you did not touch, those will be preserved.
• When you’re finished, click the  View Submission  button to see the work you submitted for your student.

M ultiple-choice , select all , and short answer questions will be graded automatically based on the correct answer you provided in the question's problem field. Short answer questions require an exact match to be marked correct. You can enable options for making the matching case-insensitive and to remove leading/trailing whitespaces on the assignment’s  Settings  page. If there are multiple input fields in one question, students must answer all of them correctly to receive any credit. Also, if there are both auto-graded and manually graded fields (see below) in the same question, you will need to manually grade all fields. Though you can auto-grade multiple-choice, select all, and short answer questions, AI-assisted grading and answer-grouping are not possible on any answer field in Online Assignments at this time. Note that you can manually override any auto-grading by going to the Grade Submissions page, clicking on the question name, and editing the rubric or rubric item applications.

F ree-response and file upload fields can only be graded manually from the assignment’s  Grade Submissions  page. If there are both auto-graded (see above) and manually grade fields in the same question, you will need to manually grade both fields. Also, though you can auto-grade multiple-choice, select all, and short answer questions, auto-grading, as well as AI-assisted grading and answer-grouping are not possible on free-response and file upload fields at this time.

Rubrics allow you to grade quickly and consistently, applying the same set of feedback to every submission. Gradescope rubrics are created for each individual question .

Online Assignments contain pre-loaded “Correct” and “Incorrect” rubric items for any multiple-choice, select all, and short answer questions. You can add rubric items to these questions if needed; however, editing or deleting these pre-loaded rubric items will interfere with the auto-grading of these questions. To learn more about rubrics, check out our guidance .

Note that students won’t see their feedback and scores until you publish grades. If you intend for students to see their results for auto-graded questions immediately, you should publish grades from the Review Grades page when you are finished creating the assignment. See the section on Displaying answers immediately above for more on this.

If you’d like students to see the correct answers for each auto-graded question after the due date has passed (even if they did not get the correct answer), you can check the  Show answers after due date  box on the assignment’s  Settings  page.

Editing an assignment currently leaves any grading on existing submissions alone. To delete a student’s submission, check their score, or see when they started an assignment or last updated their latest submission, head to your Manage Submissions page.

If the points for auto-graded questions need to be recomputed or rescored, you’ll find a  Regrade All Submissions  button on the assignment’s Manage Submissions page as well. Clicking the Regrade All Submissions button will regrade all auto-graded questions:

• multiple-choice
• short answer

Any manual grading applied to auto-graded questions, such as submission specific adjustments or comments, will not be removed unless you check the box to allow it.

As the regrading only applied to auto-graded question types , rubrics for questions with free response and file upload fields will remain unaffected, even when the "reset manual grading" box is checked.

Exporting Submission Data

Exporting assignment submissions allows you to export submission data and all of your students' scores and responses, including any files they uploaded with an assignment. 

• Open your assignment and go to the R eview Grades page.
• Select Export Submissions and then Download Submissions from the modal. 

• Once downloaded, unzip the submissions.zip file, and you should have a submission_metadata.csv file and, if your assignment had questions with File Upload fields,  a Submission_XXXXX{ID} folder for each student.
• Submission_metadata.csv - contains a spreadsheet of the students’ submission data of each question. Data listed includes submission status, sections, each student’s total assignment score, question data like given question scores, response timestamps for each question, and each student's response for each question. Any file upload questions will contain a text file ID, which you can use to locate the folder of the same name containing the raw file in a student’s submission ID folder.

• Submission_XXXXX{ID} - contains an individual student’s raw files (given a text file ID generated by Gradescope) that they uploaded as a response to any file upload questions in the assignment. The filename of each folder is the student’s submission ID and can be found in the Submission ID column of the submission_metadata.csv . To see a file for a specific question, match text file ID found in the associated Question X Response column of the submission_metadata.csv . 

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Create an assignment

This article is for teachers.

When you create an assignment, you can post it immediately, save a draft or schedule it to post at a later date. After students have completed and handed in their work, you can mark and return it to the students.

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Create and post assignments

When you create an assignment, you can:

• Select one or more classes

Select individual students

Add a mark category, add a marking period, change the point value, add a due date or time, add a topic, add attachments, add a rubric.

• Turn on originality reports

Go to classroom.google.com  and click Sign in.

Sign in with your Google Account. For example,  [email protected] or [email protected] .  Learn more .

• Enter the title and any instructions.

You can continue to edit and customise your assignment. Otherwise, if you're ready, see below to post, schedule or save your assignment .

Select additional classes

Assignments to multiple classes go to all of the students in those classes.

• Create an assignment (details above).

Unless you're selecting multiple classes, you can select individual students. You can't select more than 100 students at a time.

• Click a student's name to select them.

Use mark categories to organise assignments. With mark categories, you and your students can see the category an assignment belongs to, such as Homework or Essays . Teachers also see the categories on the Marks page.

For more information on mark categories, go to Add a mark category to posts or Set up marking .

To organise assignments and marks into your school or district's marking structure, create marking periods, such as quarters or terms.

• From the menu, select a marking period.

Tip: Before adding a marking period to an assignment, create a marking period for the class first. Learn how to create or edit marking periods .

You can change the point value of an assignment or make the assignment unmarked. By default, assignments are set at 100 points.

• Under Points , click the value.
• Enter a new point value or select Unmarked .

By default, an assignment has no due date. To set a due date:

• Click a date on the calendar.
• To create a topic, click Create topic and enter a topic name.
• Click a topic in the list to select it.

Note : You can only add one topic to an assignment.

Learn more about how to add topics to the Classwork page .

• Create an assignment.

• Important: Google Drive files can be edited by co-teachers and are view-only for students. To change these share options, you can stop, limit or change sharing .

• To add YouTube videos, an admin must turn on this option. Learn about access settings for your Google Workspace for Education account .
• You can add interactive questions to YouTube video attachments. Learn how to add interactive questions to YouTube video attachments .

• Tip: When you attach a practice set to an assignment, you can't edit it.

• If you see a message stating that you don't have permission to attach a file, click Copy . Classroom makes a copy of the file to attach to the assignment and saves it to the class Drive folder.
• Students can view file – All students can read the file, but not edit it.
• Students can edit file – All students share the same file and can make changes to it.

Note : This option is only available before you post an assignment.

Use an add-on

For instructions, go to Use add-ons in Classroom

For instructions, go to Create or reuse a rubric for an assignment .

For instructions, go to Turn on originality reports .

You can post an assignment immediately or schedule it to be posted later. If you don't want to post it yet, you can save it as a draft. To see scheduled and drafted assignments, click Classwork .

Post an assignment

• Follow the steps above to create an assignment.
• Click Assign to immediately post the assignment.

Schedule the assignment to be posted later

Scheduled assignments might be delayed by up to five minutes after the post time.

• To schedule the same assignment across multiple classes, make sure that you select all of the classes that you want to include.
• When you enter a time, Classroom defaults to p.m. unless you specify a.m.
• (Optional) Select a due date and topic for each class.
• (Optional) To replicate your selected time and date for the first class into all subsequent classes, click Copy settings to all .
• Click Schedule . The assignment will automatically post on the scheduled date, at the scheduled time.

After scheduling multiple assignments at once, you can still edit assignments later by clicking into each class and changing them individually.

Save an assignment as a draft

• Follow the steps above to create an assignment

You can open and edit draft assignments on the Classwork page.

Manage assignments

Edits affect individual classes. For multi-class assignments, make edits in each class.

Note : If you change an assignment's name, the assignment's Drive folder name isn't updated. Go to Drive and rename the folder.

Edit a posted assignment

• Enter your changes and click Save .

Edit a scheduled assignment

• Enter your changes and click Schedule .

Edit a draft assignment

Changes are automatically saved.

• Assign it immediately (details above).
• Schedule it to be posted on a specific date, at a specific time (details above).
• Click a class.

You can only delete an assignment on the Classwork page.

If you delete an assignment, all of the marks and comments related to the assignment are deleted. However, any attachments or files created by you or the students are still available in Drive.

Related articles

• Create or reuse a rubric for an assignment
• Create a quiz assignment
• Create a question
• Use add-ons in Classroom
• Create, edit, delete or share a practice set
• Learn about interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom

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How do I use TeacherMade to create online assignments?

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How do I make Interactive online assignments for students?

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Step 1: Upload your file. The file you upload becomes the background of your new online worksheet. ( We support these file types. ) Step 2: Add fields for student responses. Step 3: Add answers to questions for self-scoring. Step 4: Send an assignment link to students or sync with your school’s LMS platform. Step 5: Get instant feedback and results.

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“TeacherMade has made it infinitely easier for me to take materials from very different sources and deliver them in a consistent way to my students. They are very comfortable with the format and are able to use the tools that TeacherMade provides. During the 2020-2021 school year, TeacherMade helped me give both my virtual and in-person students a similar experience. TeacherMade frees up time that I would have spent making copies, grading, handing out papers, etc.” – Theresa D.

Help me get started with my online assignments with TeacherMade

Use files you already have in Google Drive Save time when you use worksheets that you already have. Cassandra K. explains the process:

“I create handouts & worksheets quickly from existing worksheets in Google Drive. Sometimes I modify the existing worksheets to allow for better TeacherMade formatting when I create my worksheets.” It may seem like creating assignments can be a huge time suck. Still, Cassandra reasons, “that the time I spend on the front end of my lesson planning and student materials is more than I used to spend on materials creation when I was not formatting everything for the virtual student.” She says, “However, I am spending a lot less time on grading assignments on the backend of my planning.” Give TeacherMade a try today to see how much time you could be saving.”

Share and collaborate with other Teachers and colleagues Teachers have always shared and supported one another. It’s our nature. TeacherMade allows Teachers to share and collaborate with other Teachers and colleagues. You can share your online worksheets just like you would in the traditional setting. Jennifer T says she “loves how it links to Google Classroom. And helps to keep me organized. My colleagues and I can share worksheets with each other, which is a HUGE timesaver.”

Craft a variety of question types effortlessly Often Teachers have to water down online assignments because it can be too challenging to include the question types we want. TeacherMade gives you the flexibility to create the assignments you need. Chemistry Teacher Tiffany S. explains how she takes advantage of the different questions types on TeacherMade:

“I modify lab worksheets to incorporate free response answers, graph drawings, drop-down answers for pre-lab questions, and open responses for the lab analysis questions. I like that it gives students (and me) instant feedback and that I can control with questions that are graded and which are for my own review and more formative assessment questions. I also like to take some of the higher-level analysis questions and provide a space to put a numeric answer that is graded on accuracy but then leave an open response space for the explanation that I will formally assess.”

Keep assignments the same for your virtual and traditional students It can be frustrating to recreate assignments you are handing out in your classroom for your online students. Not anymore with TeacherMade. Regina B. is required to deliver identical assignments for traditional and online classes. She says that TeacherMade: “was a time saver for me because it allowed me to bridge the gap between my students who had to do their work paper/pencil with the students who were completing their work online.” TeacherMade assignments replicate paper and pencil assignments.

Save time, stop grading, and use materials you already have to make online interactive assignments with TeacherMade

We can’t wait for you to experience all of the benefits of TeacherMade. Sign up today to get started.

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There are plenty of other articles to develop your skills and showing you how to make money teaching online!

27 Interactive Assignment Ideas For Online Students

When you are teaching students online it can sometimes be difficult to find engaging assignments for Students.  This article will look at some ways you can make your assignments more interactive and engaging to provide better quality training.

Here are 27 Interactive Assignments you can use to engage students online:

Group Audio Chat

Interview a professional, participate in forum discussions, attend online industry seminars, online whiteboard brainstorming, group concept mapping, live group google docs, sourceforge or github, creating a podcast, starting a youtube channel, use quora or reddit, create a linkedin profile, build a website, use simulation software, research companies in industry, research latest technology, participate in social media, explore mobile apps, vendor certification, create training videos, local work experience, do a job on a freelancing website, compete in an online competition, contact an industry professional.

• Attend a Conference

Record Real World Event

Record completing task.

There are some great ideas to spice up your online training as individuals or groups but now let’s dig in deeper and review how these can be assignments for online students.

Having Students meet in an Audio only or Audio and Video chat that they record as team meetings, or mock-up business meetings, or act out scenarios is a great assignment method.  It shows to the teacher the engagement of each student and what they have learned.

There are a lot of software solutions you can use to host a free video conference. The most noteworthy apps commonly used are

• GoToMeeting
• FreeConference
• GoToMeeting Free
• FreeConferenceCall

Each option has its advantages and disadvantages. Make sure you choose one that fits your requirements. Before making a decision try the demo version of each software to give you a better understanding of whether it meets your needs.  Zoom allows for 40 mins meetings for free which is all students would need to record their session in most cases.

Who can tell you more about a job than an expert? An interview that the student records with their phone is a great assignment for them not only to meet real professionals but also to learn more about the job they are training for. Students can start the assignment by locating a professional on LinkedIn and politely asking for an interview for their studies.  They can then submit as part 2 of the assignment their question list.  And finally the recorded interview.

Here is an article with a list of questions students could potentially ask their industry professional:

ARTICLE: 47 Questions to Ask Network Peers About Their Job

Forum discussions are a great way of sharing ideas and increasing student engagement. You can mark students on their involvement in your forums or industry forums.  There are various methods to increase students’ participation in online discussions . This type of activity gives students the opportunity to discuss their ideas with other students or industry professionals.

During forum discussions, students get to create and enhance their social relationships with other students. This decreases the feeling of isolation when they have friends in the class they can ask questions of for social learning.

Businesses of all types are putting on marketing and technical webinars of every subject you can think of.  You can not visit a website these days without someone offering one to you.  These are great places for students to get exposure to the real industry and interact with potential future industry peers.

They can chat with other participants and ask questions of the industry experts in each area.  For their assignment, you can get them to write a report or record the session using screencasting software showing their engagement. These are a great learning tool for students to gain exposure to their future industry.

With so many online whiteboard tools available why not have an assignment for your students to work in teams on a shared whiteboard and brainstorm their group assignments.  This always makes for a good part 1 of the assignment to show group engagement.  They can submit the resulting image to you.  You can also use an online whiteboard during online courses. If you do not know what whiteboard to use for your online course you should take a look at the 7 best online whiteboards .

A whiteboard brainstorming session is a great opportunity for your students. It gives them the chance to combine their ideas and be more creative.

As well as online whiteboards there are also online software tools specifically for brainstorming like StormBoard which can be found on their website .

Nothing helps students understand a topic more than trying to map out the key concepts.  Whether you get them to do this on their own to show individual understanding or in groups to allow them to socially learn from each other, it is a great idea.

There is a great online tool students can use for free and save their work online for 6 months with MudMap .

For some other great tools they can use check out this article:

ARTICLE: Concept Mapping Tools

While most people probably already know this one it is still worth mentioning.  The ability of a group of students to edit the same document at the same time and talk with others on group audio chat or text chat is extremely engaging.  If you have not tried this yet get someone to do it with you by downloading  Google Docs or using it in a web browser from your https://drive.google.com account.

If you are running IT training courses the ability for your students to create a code, document, or file repository that does versioning is a useful industry skill.  Not only can the students create their own repository they could also join another open-source team to help them with their documentation, planning, or coding.  This is not only something they can not only show proof of as an assignment but something they can put on their resume.

Sourceforge and Github are two of the most commonly used online hosting solutions when it comes to storing project files and source code for distributed projects. Either is fine for your online class but try both and see which one you think your students would prefer.

Sourceforge is the best option if you want to develop an open-source project that involves an application targeting the end-user. On the other hand, you should use GitHub if you are planning on creating a project that comprises a collection of packages.

To learn more about the different aspects of the two source code hosting solutions click here .

We often think of using Podcasts for disseminating information to large groups of people in an audio format.  Have you ever thought of using it as a student assignment?  Why not have the student start a podcast where they show what they have learned at each stage of the training?

They can record a quick session on their phone or and they can show their creativity by editing the audio if they want or getting in guest speakers or even just discussing it with another student from the class.  This is a great way for students to show competence especially for those with poor written skills.

While Google is currently the number one search tool on the internet the next generation is using YouTube as their first search tool. So if this is the case why not give them an assignment that is creating a Youtube channel and uploading some content.  Whether they do this in groups or alone they will learn many skills along the way that they will probably use in their working career.

This is a great way for them to start feeling comfortable on camera in certain industries or for creating screencasts of them using their computers for any task.  Maybe showing you how to use a piece of software.  Maybe the channel hosts all of their assignment submissions for the whole subject?

Quora and Reddit are two of the most commonly used forums worldwide. You can find a lot of interesting content by searching for a certain subject.

The fact that these platforms contain tons of professionals with various areas of expertise opens up new ideas your students can research for assignments.  I know the information on there is neither quantitative or qualitative but it is great for expanding what students think on a topic.

Your students will benefit from different approaches to concepts. They can read multiple points of view. This way, they will get a better understanding of the subject.

LinkedIn is the working professional social media with their resumes linked to their accounts.  Setting assignments to create a profile, or if they have a profile to connect to industry professionals, join industry groups, or even join company groups is a great opportunity for them.

This allows them to start their own networks and engage in the industries they will be part of.  It is also a great way to find a Mentor to guide them through their career.  Obviously you have to be careful depending on the age of your students and do this only with students old enough and with their parents’ permission if required.

There are various benefits of a LinkedIn profile for a student. If you want to learn more or inform your students about why they should open up a LinkedIn account go to LinkedIn for Students .

More and more websites appear online every day. You can ask your students to create a website that explains the concepts you are teaching them. Say you are teaching physics. Your students can create a free website that shows how physics is related to everyday life.

Another great example of using a website during your online course is to ask your students to create an online portfolio. This works well for all students but even more so for students that need a portfolio of work like those in photography, videography, or creative writing.

This is not difficult for them to do with a free WordPress website they can literally have up in minutes.

To recreate a real situation you can make use of simulation software. There are various domains that can benefit from simulation software solutions.  This type of assignment allows students to test out their hypotheses in a semi real-world scenario.

This type of application is commonly used in:

• Mathematics

MatLab – Mathematics

For example, to recreate possible situations in terms of statistics, you can ask your students to use MatLab .

MatLab integrates visualization, computation, and programming of mathematical notation into a high-performance simulation tool.  This would not be used for early math but for Years 10 and up you could definitely look at using this or for including into adult learning classes.

SimScale – Physics

If you are planning on simulating fluid dynamics, you should use SimScale in the Cloud.  In the Cloud just means it is hosted for your online.

It can conduct graphical and numerical simulations of fluid dynamics. It is generally used for quick optimization of different systems, as well as overall improvements.

Your students can create different situations that involve fluids. They will understand how physics affects fluid dynamics. Moreover, they will be able to see in-depth stats of various liquids getting in contact with other materials.

Comsol Multiphysics – Chemistry and Physics

This software solution is definitely one of the best in terms of simulation apps. It offers finite element analysis as well as a multiphysics feature. It allows its users to simulate physic-based events. Additionally, it can provide effective simulations of chemical applications.

Among the most noteworthy multiphysics components that Comsol can handle are

This software is easy to integrate into your students’ assignments. It will help them to understand different components of physics. For example, they will be able to learn about movement and kinetic energy using graphic simulations.

I have personally interviewed students in Mock Interview sessions and hired many people over the years and one of the biggest issues they have is not knowing the industry they are part of or the company they are applying to.

To help online students understand the industry they are part of you can get them to research online the top 10 companies in their industry.  If they are in an Arts related field may be the Top 10 Museums or if they are in Finance may be the Top 100 shares in the market.

They can look at the current news and events related to that company and who it is run by as well as the products and services they might offer or the artwork they have.

As well as knowing their industry, knowing the current and future technology gets them ready for their first job and shows them the gaps in their knowledge.  If you combine this with the previous assignment type as Part 2 then they would already know the companies to research their latest products and services.

Looking at the latest industry trends which most people call Mega Trends if they are international in nature will add the scope to their research.  Technology is a huge part of most industries these days and whether it is a new type of paint or a new type of building material every industry has them.  These technologies are not just related to the Information Technology sectors.

For students this type of assignment is a research online one or if you want to make it more engaging see if they can contact someone from the business or organization that will do an online interview with them discussing this topic.

Social media is a part of our everyday life so we should integrate it into the online learning process. You can use social media platforms in various ways to create interactive assignments for your online classes.

Engaging in Social Media for students can::

• Introduce them to Market Influencers
• Introduce them to Current Trends
• Allow them to engage in Relevant Discussions
• Keep up with Current Industry News
• Understand the role of Social Media in Business
• Inspire them with new topics

These types of assignments will encourage them to engage with their industry peers and learn from them.  Whether it is on LinkedIn, Quora, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, or Facebook they will have a community of people to bounce ideas off.  They can then print to PDF the resultant conversations to use in their assignments.

Social media is a great way of developing communication skills. Using social platforms, your students can observe patterns that appear and understand what is trending. For instance, they can predict future trends by taking a closer look at the articles posted on social media. The trends depend on a lot of factors such as people’s interest, overall feedback on a certain subject, and the number of posts on a topic.

Mobile apps are a great idea when it comes to online teaching. Mobile devices have become an effective learning tool with extended uses in both online courses and real-world learning. You can use the applications as part of your delivery content, to do assignments in or for students to research the tools related to the course you are teaching.

For example, if you are teaching physical fitness online then you can use a mobile app that tracks your students’ workout habits. These types of apps also let you analyze the results.

Tasks that can be assigned to your students can integrate mobile apps very well. For example, if you are running an online course about photo edit, you can ask your students to find out what the best mobile photo editing app is.

And finally, if you are running a course about computer programming you can get them to code and test their code in the many apps that allow for this.  The resulting code could then be submitted to your Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Obtaining a vendor certification is a tricky yet useful activity for any student in lots of different areas like IT, Project Management, Industrial Automation, Continuous Improvement, Reporting, and many other fields.

The course material can align with the Vendor Certification and can either have assignments based on that material with exams to suit.  Alternately you can have them passing their Vendor Certification as the pass for the subject.  There are heaps of universities that already do this method.

The easiest way to see most of these certifications is to look at the testing centers:

Pearson Vue List of Exams on Pearcon Vue

Prometric List of Exams on Prometric

There are heaps of other vendor certification for pretty much every form of software on computers so just check the vendor website.

To prove they know a subject they can always take a video on their phone to explain how to do the task in the real world.  There are heaps of stands for your mobile phones from ones for the bench to ones on stands.  You could also use a GoPro or equivalent.

As part 1 to the assignment, they can submit their topic and list of instructions, and Part 2 of the assignment could be the actual training video.  Whether you get them to do post-production on the video is completely up to you.  That basically just means use Windows Maker or a program like that to edit the video after recording.

If they are going to record what they are doing on their computer screen then check out this article:

ARTICLE: Spice Up Your eLearning With A Screencast

Even though Vocational Training has been doing this for years you could always organize with a local professional some work experience.  During that work experience, they could submit their own assignment like baking a complex cake or welding something or even making a small software application.

If you are doing this in conjunction with a small business it could solve a problem that small business or non-profit has and they provide feedback on the result as well as you marking it.

There are various freelancing websites worldwide and your students can try to develop their skills by doing a job on one of them.

The most commonly used freelancing websites are:

• Freelancers.com

Ask your students to create an account on any of these websites and do a job to improve their skills. Apart from using the skills you have taught them  they will also make some pocket money. This activity might open up new career paths for them or at least expose them to how the contracting industry works.

Whether the job they get paid to do succeeds or fails they will get invaluable knowledge on how to deal with customers.  How to perform that particular task and also what the quality and expectations are for work in that industry.

Competitions are always interesting regardless of your students’ age. They will definitely be interested in participating in online contests.  If you are trying to get a bit of competition going there is nothing like industry professionals judging student competitions.  If you can’t find one online how about making one?

Examples of competition areas:

• Photo editing
• Video editing

There are a lot of different online competitions available in different areas. It is a great idea to find one contest that is suitable for the subject you are teaching and ask your students to join. They will work hard, being motivated by either the awards or the competitive spirit.

There are heaps of student competition websites and here are a couple: https://studentcompetitions.com/competitions https://www.weareteachers.com/student-contests-competitions/

NOTE: Make sure your students are eligible to enter

It used to be very hard to contact industry professionals and it used to take a phone book and heaps of phone calls.  Now with LinkedIn, you can give the students a script to follow and they can contact heaps of Industry Professionals either locally or Internationally in any company.

Obviously, if your students are under the legal age you would work with a parent or with yourself to contact the industry professional.  But it is never too early to start creating an industry network of people you can have as mentors or to ask for advice or to help you with a project.

Due to this being so simple now you really have no excuse to not include it in every course your teach.

Attend A Conference

Submitting a review or article on even recording an industry event in their field of study is great for students to expose themselves to the breadth of the industry.  Whether they go with their parents or if old enough on their own.  Looking at events that are on at your local convention center or with your local industry groups and introducing themselves get them to engage on a whole new level.

It starts to teach them real-world skills that are taught by professionals in their industry and keep up to date with what is happening in their local area and country.  Seeing all the vendors during breaks and visiting their stands opens up whole new worlds for them.

There are conferences on everything from sewing to samurai swords and you just need to look at which ones suit your audience.  With Covid-19 most of them have gone online as well.  So since now, they have proven to themselves how to do this there will likely be way more done this way.

Here is an article on some creative conferences you could have students visit:

ARTICLE: Creative Conferences

Every day in every town in the world you there are things happening from space launches to recording a local chef cooking a meal.  With a video camera in every pocket, the student can get into the world local to them and record something actually happening.

Whether they write a report on it or a detailed set of instructions to go with the video or narrate it like a sports commentator.  There are heaps of creative and engaging ways to get students to learn in this way.  They can also play around the video after it has been created to make it more professional or fun.

Recording themselves while completing certain tasks you have assigned is a great idea for your students. A video recording can be rewind back and forth as many times as you need. Whether you are a student or a teacher it is a great idea to have video proof of your task completion.

This works well for every type of class and thinking of how you can add more video recording to your classes will only make it more engaging for students.

I am a Technical Trainer and Manager with over 20 years experience in IT, Education and Business. I have multiple qualifications on each topic including post graduate qualifications. I have a passion for sharing knowledge and using technology to do this. If you would like to know more about me please see the about page of the website.

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Teaching, Learning, & Professional Development Center

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How Do I Create Meaningful and Effective Assignments?

Prepared by allison boye, ph.d. teaching, learning, and professional development center.

Assessment is a necessary part of the teaching and learning process, helping us measure whether our students have really learned what we want them to learn. While exams and quizzes are certainly favorite and useful methods of assessment, out of class assignments (written or otherwise) can offer similar insights into our students' learning.  And just as creating a reliable test takes thoughtfulness and skill, so does creating meaningful and effective assignments. Undoubtedly, many instructors have been on the receiving end of disappointing student work, left wondering what went wrong… and often, those problems can be remedied in the future by some simple fine-tuning of the original assignment.  This paper will take a look at some important elements to consider when developing assignments, and offer some easy approaches to creating a valuable assessment experience for all involved.

First Things First…

Before assigning any major tasks to students, it is imperative that you first define a few things for yourself as the instructor:

• Your goals for the assignment . Why are you assigning this project, and what do you hope your students will gain from completing it? What knowledge, skills, and abilities do you aim to measure with this assignment?  Creating assignments is a major part of overall course design, and every project you assign should clearly align with your goals for the course in general.  For instance, if you want your students to demonstrate critical thinking, perhaps asking them to simply summarize an article is not the best match for that goal; a more appropriate option might be to ask for an analysis of a controversial issue in the discipline. Ultimately, the connection between the assignment and its purpose should be clear to both you and your students to ensure that it is fulfilling the desired goals and doesn't seem like “busy work.” For some ideas about what kinds of assignments match certain learning goals, take a look at this page from DePaul University's Teaching Commons.
• Have they experienced “socialization” in the culture of your discipline (Flaxman, 2005)? Are they familiar with any conventions you might want them to know? In other words, do they know the “language” of your discipline, generally accepted style guidelines, or research protocols?
• Do they know how to conduct research?  Do they know the proper style format, documentation style, acceptable resources, etc.? Do they know how to use the library (Fitzpatrick, 1989) or evaluate resources?
• What kinds of writing or work have they previously engaged in?  For instance, have they completed long, formal writing assignments or research projects before? Have they ever engaged in analysis, reflection, or argumentation? Have they completed group assignments before?  Do they know how to write a literature review or scientific report?

In his book Engaging Ideas (1996), John Bean provides a great list of questions to help instructors focus on their main teaching goals when creating an assignment (p.78):

1. What are the main units/modules in my course?

2. What are my main learning objectives for each module and for the course?

3. What thinking skills am I trying to develop within each unit and throughout the course?

4. What are the most difficult aspects of my course for students?

5. If I could change my students' study habits, what would I most like to change?

6. What difference do I want my course to make in my students' lives?

What your students need to know

Once you have determined your own goals for the assignment and the levels of your students, you can begin creating your assignment.  However, when introducing your assignment to your students, there are several things you will need to clearly outline for them in order to ensure the most successful assignments possible.

• First, you will need to articulate the purpose of the assignment . Even though you know why the assignment is important and what it is meant to accomplish, you cannot assume that your students will intuit that purpose. Your students will appreciate an understanding of how the assignment fits into the larger goals of the course and what they will learn from the process (Hass & Osborn, 2007). Being transparent with your students and explaining why you are asking them to complete a given assignment can ultimately help motivate them to complete the assignment more thoughtfully.
• If you are asking your students to complete a writing assignment, you should define for them the “rhetorical or cognitive mode/s” you want them to employ in their writing (Flaxman, 2005). In other words, use precise verbs that communicate whether you are asking them to analyze, argue, describe, inform, etc.  (Verbs like “explore” or “comment on” can be too vague and cause confusion.) Provide them with a specific task to complete, such as a problem to solve, a question to answer, or an argument to support.  For those who want assignments to lead to top-down, thesis-driven writing, John Bean (1996) suggests presenting a proposition that students must defend or refute, or a problem that demands a thesis answer.
• It is also a good idea to define the audience you want your students to address with their assignment, if possible – especially with writing assignments.  Otherwise, students will address only the instructor, often assuming little requires explanation or development (Hedengren, 2004; MIT, 1999). Further, asking students to address the instructor, who typically knows more about the topic than the student, places the student in an unnatural rhetorical position.  Instead, you might consider asking your students to prepare their assignments for alternative audiences such as other students who missed last week's classes, a group that opposes their position, or people reading a popular magazine or newspaper.  In fact, a study by Bean (1996) indicated the students often appreciate and enjoy assignments that vary elements such as audience or rhetorical context, so don't be afraid to get creative!
• Obviously, you will also need to articulate clearly the logistics or “business aspects” of the assignment . In other words, be explicit with your students about required elements such as the format, length, documentation style, writing style (formal or informal?), and deadlines.  One caveat, however: do not allow the logistics of the paper take precedence over the content in your assignment description; if you spend all of your time describing these things, students might suspect that is all you care about in their execution of the assignment.
• Finally, you should clarify your evaluation criteria for the assignment. What elements of content are most important? Will you grade holistically or weight features separately? How much weight will be given to individual elements, etc?  Another precaution to take when defining requirements for your students is to take care that your instructions and rubric also do not overshadow the content; prescribing too rigidly each element of an assignment can limit students' freedom to explore and discover. According to Beth Finch Hedengren, “A good assignment provides the purpose and guidelines… without dictating exactly what to say” (2004, p. 27).  If you decide to utilize a grading rubric, be sure to provide that to the students along with the assignment description, prior to their completion of the assignment.

A great way to get students engaged with an assignment and build buy-in is to encourage their collaboration on its design and/or on the grading criteria (Hudd, 2003). In his article “Conducting Writing Assignments,” Richard Leahy (2002) offers a few ideas for building in said collaboration:

• Ask the students to develop the grading scale themselves from scratch, starting with choosing the categories.

• Set the grading categories yourself, but ask the students to help write the descriptions.

• Draft the complete grading scale yourself, then give it to your students for review and suggestions.

A Few Do's and Don'ts…

Determining your goals for the assignment and its essential logistics is a good start to creating an effective assignment. However, there are a few more simple factors to consider in your final design. First, here are a few things you should do :

• Do provide detail in your assignment description . Research has shown that students frequently prefer some guiding constraints when completing assignments (Bean, 1996), and that more detail (within reason) can lead to more successful student responses.  One idea is to provide students with physical assignment handouts , in addition to or instead of a simple description in a syllabus.  This can meet the needs of concrete learners and give them something tangible to refer to.  Likewise, it is often beneficial to make explicit for students the process or steps necessary to complete an assignment, given that students – especially younger ones – might need guidance in planning and time management (MIT, 1999).
• Do use open-ended questions.  The most effective and challenging assignments focus on questions that lead students to thinking and explaining, rather than simple yes or no answers, whether explicitly part of the assignment description or in the  brainstorming heuristics (Gardner, 2005).
• Do direct students to appropriate available resources . Giving students pointers about other venues for assistance can help them get started on the right track independently. These kinds of suggestions might include information about campus resources such as the University Writing Center or discipline-specific librarians, suggesting specific journals or books, or even sections of their textbook, or providing them with lists of research ideas or links to acceptable websites.
• Do consider providing models – both successful and unsuccessful models (Miller, 2007). These models could be provided by past students, or models you have created yourself.  You could even ask students to evaluate the models themselves using the determined evaluation criteria, helping them to visualize the final product, think critically about how to complete the assignment, and ideally, recognize success in their own work.
• Do consider including a way for students to make the assignment their own. In their study, Hass and Osborn (2007) confirmed the importance of personal engagement for students when completing an assignment.  Indeed, students will be more engaged in an assignment if it is personally meaningful, practical, or purposeful beyond the classroom.  You might think of ways to encourage students to tap into their own experiences or curiosities, to solve or explore a real problem, or connect to the larger community.  Offering variety in assignment selection can also help students feel more individualized, creative, and in control.
• If your assignment is substantial or long, do consider sequencing it. Far too often, assignments are given as one-shot final products that receive grades at the end of the semester, eternally abandoned by the student.  By sequencing a large assignment, or essentially breaking it down into a systematic approach consisting of interconnected smaller elements (such as a project proposal, an annotated bibliography, or a rough draft, or a series of mini-assignments related to the longer assignment), you can encourage thoughtfulness, complexity, and thoroughness in your students, as well as emphasize process over final product.

Next are a few elements to avoid in your assignments:

• Do not ask too many questions in your assignment.  In an effort to challenge students, instructors often err in the other direction, asking more questions than students can reasonably address in a single assignment without losing focus. Offering an overly specific “checklist” prompt often leads to externally organized papers, in which inexperienced students “slavishly follow the checklist instead of integrating their ideas into more organically-discovered structure” (Flaxman, 2005).
• Do not expect or suggest that there is an “ideal” response to the assignment. A common error for instructors is to dictate content of an assignment too rigidly, or to imply that there is a single correct response or a specific conclusion to reach, either explicitly or implicitly (Flaxman, 2005). Undoubtedly, students do not appreciate feeling as if they must read an instructor's mind to complete an assignment successfully, or that their own ideas have nowhere to go, and can lose motivation as a result. Similarly, avoid assignments that simply ask for regurgitation (Miller, 2007). Again, the best assignments invite students to engage in critical thinking, not just reproduce lectures or readings.
• Do not provide vague or confusing commands . Do students know what you mean when they are asked to “examine” or “discuss” a topic? Return to what you determined about your students' experiences and levels to help you decide what directions will make the most sense to them and what will require more explanation or guidance, and avoid verbiage that might confound them.
• Do not impose impossible time restraints or require the use of insufficient resources for completion of the assignment.  For instance, if you are asking all of your students to use the same resource, ensure that there are enough copies available for all students to access – or at least put one copy on reserve in the library. Likewise, make sure that you are providing your students with ample time to locate resources and effectively complete the assignment (Fitzpatrick, 1989).

The assignments we give to students don't simply have to be research papers or reports. There are many options for effective yet creative ways to assess your students' learning! Here are just a few:

Journals, Posters, Portfolios, Letters, Brochures, Management plans, Editorials, Instruction Manuals, Imitations of a text, Case studies, Debates, News release, Dialogues, Videos, Collages, Plays, Power Point presentations

Ultimately, the success of student responses to an assignment often rests on the instructor's deliberate design of the assignment. By being purposeful and thoughtful from the beginning, you can ensure that your assignments will not only serve as effective assessment methods, but also engage and delight your students. If you would like further help in constructing or revising an assignment, the Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center is glad to offer individual consultations. In addition, look into some of the resources provided below.

Online Resources

“Creating Effective Assignments” http://www.unh.edu/teaching-excellence/resources/Assignments.htm This site, from the University of New Hampshire's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning,  provides a brief overview of effective assignment design, with a focus on determining and communicating goals and expectations.

Gardner, T.  (2005, June 12). Ten Tips for Designing Writing Assignments. Traci's Lists of Ten. http://www.tengrrl.com/tens/034.shtml This is a brief yet useful list of tips for assignment design, prepared by a writing teacher and curriculum developer for the National Council of Teachers of English .  The website will also link you to several other lists of “ten tips” related to literacy pedagogy.

“How to Create Effective Assignments for College Students.”  http:// tilt.colostate.edu/retreat/2011/zimmerman.pdf     This PDF is a simplified bulleted list, prepared by Dr. Toni Zimmerman from Colorado State University, offering some helpful ideas for coming up with creative assignments.

“Learner-Centered Assessment” http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/teaching_resources/tips/learner_centered_assessment.html From the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo, this is a short list of suggestions for the process of designing an assessment with your students' interests in mind. “Matching Learning Goals to Assignment Types.” http://teachingcommons.depaul.edu/How_to/design_assignments/assignments_learning_goals.html This is a great page from DePaul University's Teaching Commons, providing a chart that helps instructors match assignments with learning goals.

Additional References Bean, J.C. (1996). Engaging ideas: The professor's guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fitzpatrick, R. (1989). Research and writing assignments that reduce fear lead to better papers and more confident students. Writing Across the Curriculum , 3.2, pp. 15 – 24.

Flaxman, R. (2005). Creating meaningful writing assignments. The Teaching Exchange .  Retrieved Jan. 9, 2008 from http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Sheridan_Center/pubs/teachingExchange/jan2005/01_flaxman.pdf

Hass, M. & Osborn, J. (2007, August 13). An emic view of student writing and the writing process. Across the Disciplines, 4. 

Hedengren, B.F. (2004). A TA's guide to teaching writing in all disciplines . Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Hudd, S. S. (2003, April). Syllabus under construction: Involving students in the creation of class assignments.  Teaching Sociology , 31, pp. 195 – 202.

Leahy, R. (2002). Conducting writing assignments. College Teaching , 50.2, pp. 50 – 54.

Miller, H. (2007). Designing effective writing assignments.  Teaching with writing .  University of Minnesota Center for Writing. Retrieved Jan. 9, 2008, from http://writing.umn.edu/tww/assignments/designing.html

MIT Online Writing and Communication Center (1999). Creating Writing Assignments. Retrieved January 9, 2008 from http://web.mit.edu/writing/Faculty/createeffective.html .

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How to Start an Assignment

Last Updated: January 29, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Michelle Golden, PhD . Michelle Golden is an English teacher in Athens, Georgia. She received her MA in Language Arts Teacher Education in 2008 and received her PhD in English from Georgia State University in 2015. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 106,178 times.

Getting started on an assignment or homework can often times be the hardest step. Putting off the assignment can make the problem worse, reducing the time you have to complete the task and increasing stress. By learning how to get started and overcome the urge to procrastinate, you can get your assignments done on schedule and with less stress, opening up more free time.

Restructuring Your Assignment

• For example, you might research areas of a report that you find most interesting before moving on to other areas.
• If your math assignment has different types of questions, try doing those that you enjoy the most before moving on to the others.
• You might also try tackling smaller or easier tasks first so you can cross a few items off your list. Seeing that you've already made progress may help you feel motivated to continue.

• Promise yourself that you will meet your goal of working for five minutes on the assignment.
• Once you get started, you may find that you don't want to stop working. Otherwise, you can take a break and come back to the assignment, knowing you're at least five minutes closer to finishing than you were before.

• Try to set reasonable periods of time that you know you can meet. For example, you might set aside two hours on a Friday to dedicate to your assignment. If you don't have that much time all at once, try to carve out a few 20- or 30-minute blocks.
• You may or may not wish to continue working after your time limit has gone by.
• Have a realistic understanding of how fast you can write and plan your schedule accordingly.

• It can help to read the assignment as soon as you get it and then ask any questions you might have.
• If you're not sure if you understand the assignment, try rewriting it in your own words or explaining it to someone else. If you find you can't or have a lot of questions, you may need more information.
• You should have an overview of the assignment, understand the main task, and understand the technical and stylistic requirements.
• Look for important words in the instructions to understand the assignment. These words might include define, explain, compare, relate, or prove.
• Keep your audience in mind and write a paper that would best deliver information to them.

• Goals that are too big or not well defined can be difficult to start working towards.
• Smaller and well defined goals can seem easier to achieve than larger ones.
• For example, you could break a research paper down into several smaller tasks: 1) do preliminary research, 2) write an outline, 3) draft an introduction, 4) draft body paragraphs, 5) write conclusion, 6) revise. Each of these is much more do-able on its own.

Changing Your Focus

• You might want to go for a quick walk after working for a set amount of time.
• Try reading a website or book that you enjoy for a few minutes after working.
• Alternatively, try a quick burst of exercise before setting to work. Exercise releases feel-good chemicals called endorphins and can also help boost your memory. [8] X Research source

• Instead of dreading your work, focus on how good it will feel to make progress. You won't have it hanging over your head. You can actually enjoy the weekend instead of feeling guilty.
• Keeping your eye on long-term rewards can help you stay motivated to finish your assignment.

• Avoid moving your workspace constantly.
• Don't get lost on tangential research.
• Don't take constant breaks to get a snack.

• For every hour you waste procrastinating, you can limit how much television you watch that night.
• If you waste too much time procrastinating, you might deny yourself a favorite snack later on.

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• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/solving-unsolvable-problems/201408/4-steps-stop-procrastinating
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/friendship-20/201405/the-surefire-first-step-stop-procrastinating
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/procrastination/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/homework.html
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/understanding-assignments/
• ↑ https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/ab22ff64-3358-4387-9761-8c58878a6b84/resource/3ee38320-17e4-46f9-b24f-c95f9f345eb9/download/ipp7.pdf
• ↑ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/how-exercise-can-help-us-learn/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/happy-life.html

About This Article

To start an assignment, try working on the most enjoyable or easiest parts of the assignment first to get the ball rolling. Even if no part of the assignment seems enjoyable or easy, set a timer and try to make yourself work for at least 5 minutes, which is usually enough time to build momentum and overcome procrastination. You can also try breaking your assignment up into smaller, more manageable tasks and scheduling yourself regular breaks so it doesn't seem as overwhelming. To learn how to stay positive and avoid procrastination while working on your homework, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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• Manor Lords guides

How do market areas and marketplaces work in Manor Lords?

And what does “family request more market area” mean?

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Marketplaces in Manor Lords are where all of the stuff your village needs to survive — stuff like firewood, food, and clothes — gets distributed. They’re not a way to make money, though. Your first exposure to them will likely be when you get an alert saying that a “ family requests more market area for their stall .”

Our Manor Lords marketplace guide will explain how marketplaces work to distribute food, fuel, and clothes.

How marketplaces work in Manor Lords

In order to upgrade your Burgage Plots in Manor Lords , those plots need access to a marketplace supplied with fuel, food, and clothing. Building a marketplace is free , and any family that wants to can set up a stall in that marketplace at no cost (more on this in a second).

Stalls in a marketplace will sell a mix of goods in one of those same three categories of fuel, food, and clothing . It’s unclear exactly what triggers a family to set up a stall in the market, but, generally, it just kind of happens once you build up a surplus of any one type of good.

What does “family requests more market area for their stall” mean”?

When you start seeing the “family requests more market area for their stall” alert, this just means that one of your families has a surplus of goods that they want to sell to the rest of the town. All you have to do is provide them with a marketplace plot by, you know, building a marketplace. So long as there is a marketplace with slots available for stalls, you won’t get this message. Your first marketplace can be as big as you want, but somewhere between 10 and 15 stall slots is a safe bet — you can always add another marketplace later.

Having multiple marketplaces is a better bet than just one big central one because…

Marketplaces are based on priority, not proximity

Marketplaces offer the Burgage Plots around access to whatever’s for sale inside. But just the presence of a marketplace and stalls isn’t enough. Every family — and remember there can be multiple families on each Burgage Plot — requires one fuel and one food per month (in the winter, from December through February, they require two fuel per month).

What’s available in a marketplace gets picked up by families from the surrounding Burgage Plots, not distributed to them. That means the distribution isn’t even across all plots. It’s more of a first come, first served situation (and the ones that are closer just so happen to get there first).

In order to keep everyone happy and their needs met — both to keep your approval from dropping and for upgrading Burgage Plots — you’ll have to have enough food and enough kinds of food for everyone to pick it up from the market before those plots closest to the market come back for the next month’s supply. In the image above, for example, you can see that almost everyone picked up vegetables for the month (except for the plots farthest out), but only the few plots directly touching a marketplace got any berries.

The requirements to upgrade a plot aren’t one-time checks. Those plots require those goods every month thereafter — put another way, now that they have access to two kinds of food, they expect it from then on. Upgrading from Level 1 to Level 2 doesn’t mean that the food requirements for that Burgage Plot increase by one food per family per month — they’ll survive on one — but their approval of you depends on having access to more.

Why aren’t my goods going to the marketplace?

As with everything in Manor Lords , keeping everyone warm and fed involves a lot of moving pieces. Just growing or making food doesn’t always mean it’ll make it to the marketplace and then into your Burgage Plots (and then your families’ bellies).

First, check your granary and storehouse . Everyone will automatically drop their goods in those — different types of food get stored in each — but that doesn’t mean it’ll make it to a market stall. You might have to assign one family (or more, as your town grows) to the granary and storehouse. Those families will both go get stuff to store, but also set up stalls to sell that stuff.

Additionally, check your trading post (if you have one). When you set up a trade route, you establish a desired surplus . This is a way to make sure you don’t export goods you want to keep. This desired surplus applies to the granary and storehouse, so, if you set the surplus to aim for too high at the trading post, you’ll inadvertently prevent those goods from making it to the marketplace.

Hovering over a marketplace plot will show you how many stall locations are unclaimed inside. If you’re running out — or even if your town is just spreading out too far — you can always add another marketplace plot. Manor Lords treats all of the marketplaces in a region as one unit, but the stalls get built wherever there’s people with stuff to sell and others who need said stuff. Spreading out your marketplaces makes it easier for families to get what they need.

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New Data Reveal How Many Students Are Using AI to Cheat

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AI-fueled cheating—and how to stop students from doing it—has become a major concern for educators.

But how prevalent is it? Newly released data from a popular plagiarism-detection company is shedding some light on the problem.

And it may not be as bad as educators think it is.

Of the more than 200 million writing assignments reviewed by Turnitin’s AI detection tool over the past year, some AI use was detected in about 1 out of 10 assignments, while only 3 out of every 100 assignments were generated mostly by AI.

These numbers have not changed much from when Turnitin released data in August of 2023 about the first three months of the use of its detection tool, said the company’s chief product officer, Annie Chechitelli.

“We hit a steady state, and it hasn’t changed dramatically since then,” she said. “There are students who are leaning on AI too much. But it’s not pervasive. It wasn’t this, ‘the sky is falling.’”

The fact that the number of students using AI to complete their schoolwork hasn’t skyrocketed in the past year dovetails with survey findings from Stanford University that were released in December. Researchers there polled students in 40 different high schools and found that the percentage of students who admitted to cheating has remained flat since the advent of ChatGPT and other readily available generative AI tools. For years before the release of ChatGPT, between 60 and 70 percent of students admitted to cheating, and that remained the same in the 2023 surveys, the researchers said.

Turnitin’s latest data release shows that in 11 percent of assignments run through its AI detection tool that at least 20 percent of each assignment had evidence of AI use in the writing. In 3 percent of the assignments, each assignment was made up of 80 percent or more of AI writing, which tracks closely with what the company was seeing just 3 months after it launched its AI detection tool .

Experts warn against fixating on cheating and plagiarism

However, a separate survey of educators has found that AI detection tools are becoming more popular with teachers, a trend that worries some experts.

The survey of middle and high school teachers by the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit focused on technology policy and consumer rights, found that 68 percent have used an AI detection tool, up substantially from the previous year. Teachers also reported in the same survey that students are increasingly getting in trouble for using AI to complete assignments. In the 2023-24 school year, 63 percent of teachers said students had gotten in trouble for being accused of using generative AI in their schoolwork, up from 48 percent last school year.

Despite scant evidence that AI is fueling a wave in cheating, half of teachers reported in the Center for Democracy and Technology survey that generative AI has made them more distrustful that their students are turning in original work.

Some experts warn that fixating on plagiarism and cheating is the wrong focus.

This creates an environment where students are afraid to talk with their teachers about AI tools because they might get in trouble, said Tara Nattrass, the managing director of innovation and strategy at ISTE+ASCD, a nonprofit that offers content and professional development on educational technology and curriculum.

“We need to reframe the conversation and engage with students around the ways in which AI can support them in their learning and the ways in which it may be detrimental to their learning,” she said in an email to Education Week. “We want students to know that activities like using AI to write essays and pass them off as their own is harmful to their learning while using AI to break down difficult topics to strengthen understanding can help them in their learning.”

Shift the focus to teaching AI literacy, crafting better policies

Students said in the Stanford survey that is generally how they think AI should be used: as an aid to understanding concepts rather than a fancy plagiarism tool.

Nattrass said schools should be teaching AI literacy while including students in drafting clear AI guidelines.

Nattrass also recommends against schools using AI detection tools. They are too unreliable to authenticate students’ work, she said, and false positives can be devastating to individual students and breed a larger environment of mistrust. Some research has found that AI detection tools are especially weak at identifying the original writing of English learners from AI-driven prose.

“Students are using AI and will continue to do so with or without educator guidance,” Nattrass said. “Teaching students about safe and ethical AI use is a part of our responsibility to help them become contributing digital citizens.”

AI detection software actually uses AI to function: these tools are trained on large amounts of machine- and human-created writing so that the software can ideally recognize differences between the two.

Turnitin claims that its AI detector is 99 percent accurate at determining whether a document was written with AI, specifically ChatGPT, as long as the document was composed with at least 20 percent of AI writing, according to the company’s website.

Chechitelli pointed out that no detector or test—whether it’s a fire alarm or medical test—is 100 percent accurate.

While she said teachers should not rely solely on AI detectors to determine if a student is using AI to cheat, she makes the case that detection tools can provide teachers with valuable data.

“It is not definitive proof,” she said. “It’s a signal that taken with other signals can be used to start a conversation with a student.”

As educators become more comfortable with generative AI, Chechitelli said she predicts the focus will shift from detection to transparency: how should students cite or communicate the ways they’ve used AI? When should educators encourage students to use AI in assignments? And do schools have clear policies around AI use and what, exactly, constitutes plagiarism or cheating?

“What the feedback we’re hearing now from students is: ‘I’m gonna use it. I would love a little bit more guidance on how and when so I don’t get in trouble,” but still use it to learn, Chechitelli said.

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