Creating Effective Assignments for Students

 Assignments given out by teachers are a crucial part of any student’s learning journey. They help reinforce the learning in the classroom and give an opportunity for the students to dive deeper into the concepts they learn at school. It can also facilitate a better understanding of the topics. If a student finds that a specific topic has held their interest, they can explore it further. This could be the start of their scholarly inclination towards a subject. 

For the teachers, too, assignments are a great way to assess the progress that students are making in their comprehension and retention of topics they study. Consider an assignment that prompts the real-life application of a scientific principle. The student’s submission can be a good parameter to gauge their conceptual clarity. It can also give the teachers an insight into the strong and weak aspects of a student’s progress. 

For example, a student might perform well in research-based assignments, but not so well in group projects. This highlights the need for the child to hone their teamwork skills, while simultaneously showing us that the student is a good candidate to pursue research. 

Why are assignments important?

Research has shown us that homework assignments can lay the groundwork for students to pursue a deeper interest in a topic. As students grow older, assignments help them develop and practice the skills that are needed to research deeply, form opinions, and to question the gaps in scholarly knowledge. This inquisitive route is how students develop skills for scholarly research. 

Additionally, assignments are, simply, a great practice to help boost test scores. 

Where does the Assignment Writing Exercise go wrong?

Despite the plethora of benefits that assignments have, teachers often report that the process of assigning work and evaluating it isn’t smooth. The submissions made by students fall short of the expected quality. Why? Let’s explore these reasons and what teachers can do for assignment writing help for students.  

Originality in Submission

Often, students look at assignments as an opportunity to reshare what they learned from textbooks. Assignment writing, to them, becomes an exercise in rote-memorising. This means that students don’t think creatively, so the assignments have zero original inputs. 

Rigour in research is missing 

Sometimes, the students make half-hearted submissions that lack depth or any real effort at research. They might recycle the limited material of the textbook. An inspired student will always go out of the way to find out more about the subject matter. 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism occurs when a student copies someone else’s ideas or work, either exactly or in a paraphrased form, and presents it as if it is their own work, without any attribution towards the original author. Students learn from the published work — textbooks, journals, research papers — of scholars, and can deliberately or inadvertently — miss out on attributing the ideas to the researchers, thinkers, or scientists who originally thought of them. This is considered plagiarism and is generally looked down upon in academics.

Lack of adherence to timelines

Often, students make late submissions or miss deadlines. Now, this is a time-management issue for the most part. But, it can also impact the quality of the work they submit. A student who schedules how they will work on the assignment and sets time aside for proofreading it before submitting is more likely to submit a decent assignment, compared to a student who scrambles something on the deadline day. 

How can teachers and tutors design an effective assignment writing exercise?

Whether you are teaching a student at school or homeschooling a child as an online tutor, the following tips can help build an assignment writing exercise that will elicit inspired responses from the students:

Give out clear instructions

These instructions should include both the details of submission and such logistics as well as guidelines and additional tips on the outline of the assignment. The former will include details like the deadline, the word count or length of the assignment, the formatting details, the level of research expected, and the evaluation criteria. If students know what parameters they’re being assessed on, they will be able to deliver better quality work, more confidently.

For many students, starting is the hardest part. Consider giving them a list of pointers on how to start a writing assignment. 

Signpost students to available resources

If you know of certain resources that students might find helpful for the assignment, share them upfront. Make it fun and easy for them to navigate assignment writing. Do you know of any quizzes or informative multimedia resources that can give them a better understanding of the concept before they dive into the assignment? 

Share a list of such resources as an optional educational module for them. Many students appreciate the topic more when they’re able to understand it from different perspectives. 

Share examples of previous model assignments 

If you have examples and models that you can share with students, take the opportunity to pass them out and discuss them in class. Instead of playing a guessing game, show students exactly what the texts that they are to write should look like. Student models and samples can round out your collection by providing more authentic examples of the work that the students are completing.

Look out for students who need extra help

Even if you do everything possible to make the assignment easy and fun for students, there will still be outliers. Watch out for such students who might need extra help and guidance. They can seek help from an online assignment writing service. Some in-person or online mentoring and hands-on guidance can bring them on a level playing field with their peers. 

Also, look out for students who may have missed some lessons previously due to personal reasons. They can gain immensely from one-on-one guidance as well. 

If you want your students to submit high-scoring assignments, you can make sure they know as much as possible from the beginning. Knowledge is power, after all!