Web-Based Assignment Design: Principles and Possibilities

This site has valuable information and links to sites with comprehensive guides and excellent examples.

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Examples of (and Resources for) Effective Web-Based Assignments

Virtual Resource Site for Teaching with Technology  The assignments at this site are organized according to particular kinds of learning activities (e.g., problem solving, object and document analysis, data gathering and synthesis, case studies, virtual labs and field trips, collaborative learning., etc.). Each is associated with one or more interactive tool, and information about each kind of technology—what it is and how to use it—appears in the technologies section of the site.  An interesting example of one of these assignments is from a World Literature course at Georgia Perimeter College:  Where in the Hell Is Dante Alighieri?

E-Pedagogy This site lists assignments (and links to the coursesfrom which they come) in the areas of Literature, Literary Theory, Composition and Rhetoric, and “(Cyber-)Cultural Studies.”

Computers in Higher Education Economics Review   The “downloadable” assignments on this site use a variety of m edia to teach economics; the site also provides all the statistical resources students will need.  It’s part of the IDEAS database, which runs on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics and hosted by the University of Connecticut.

This Computer Information Systems course at Marin Community College (CA) has interesting online assignments and tutorials to help students accomplish them.

Webquests  A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. This site includes a WebQuest on Creating WebQuests and Sources and Resources for Designing Webquests

University of Michigan’s Center for Teaching and Research on Learning provides examples of faculty uses of technology in teaching.  One example is a course on Teaching Intermediate Spanish using Technology, in which students have to create a virtual tour of a Spanish city by integrating and annotating the web sites provided by the instructor.

Temple University’s Library Guides have suggestions for figuring out how to approach assignments in every discipline and tips for finding, evaluating, and using relevant sources.   Here’s an example of one of these guides (that includes detailed descriptions of the assignments)  for a philosophy course on Pragmatism

Temple University’s Subject and Course Guides include explanations of the concepts and key terms, compilations of relevant databases and resources, summaries of recent news and research, and so forth.  Here’s an example of a course guide for assignments on Market Research

The UCSB English Department’s Knowledge Base Wiki which “collects and makes available the various interests, talents, and resources of the English Department community” at the University os Santa Barbara, CA.  You can find assignments from many of their courses on the Assignments page of this site.  Also excellent is their Guide to Online Writing and Speaking Resources, which includes links to comprehensive guides for composing and editing writing and for creating and delivering oral presentations.

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