Signature Work Larry J King Ph D Chair

Signature Work Larry J. King, Ph. D. Chair, LEAP Texas lking@sfasu. edu

What is signature work? • Defined in a variety of ways. • Some common features or purposes: • Require students to demonstrate and apply their proficiency in one or more key learning outcomes. • This often means: • synthesizing, • analyzing, and • applying cumulative knowledge and skills through problem or inquiry-based assignments or projects. • May also follow a theme across curricular and co-curricular experiences tied to the institutional mission or features of the surrounding community, allowing students to apply their knowledge and abilities to meaningful questions over time. • At some institutions, they must include specific components, such as a “realworld” application, reflective writing, or collaborative work (“Integrating Signature Assignments, ” n. d. ).

• The most distinctive feature of signature assignments is the way programs integrate them across the educational pathway to help students demonstrate: • their growth, • make connections across the curriculum and co-curriculum, • apply their knowledge to real world problems (“Integrating Signature Assignments, ” n. d. ). • A signature assignment: • is a generic task, problem, case, or project that can be tailored or contextualized to align with a particular course/discipline, • is well-aligned with the learning outcome(s), • is authentic in terms of process and content, • may address a ‘real-world’ application, and • may include reflection on learning (Driscoll, 2011). • A “signature assignment” is that assignment or exam that best displays the knowledge or skills essential to the objectives of a course. • Other coursework should build toward the completion of the course ‘signature’ assignment. • Think of a signature assignment as a milestone in the student’s progress toward fulfilling the program objectives. • Ideally, signature assignments are the types of works that students and professors would most like to present to others as evidence of accomplishment (i. e. , work they would like to sign and have signed) (“Signature Assignments, ” n. d. ). • Signature assignments require students to demonstrate and apply their proficiency in one or more key learning outcomes (“Integrating Signature Assignments, ” n. d. ).

Why should we use signature work? • Aspirational reasons: • Signature assignments that vertically and horizontally span the curriculum create a structure for students to cumulatively build proficiencies throughout their undergraduate experience (“Integrating Signature Assignments, ” n. d. ). • This design invites students to produce meaningful examples of their learning that document their progress and culminating skills and abilities. • To ensure that we are setting up students for long-term professional success, all students need direct experience—across the curriculum—probing and tackling unscripted problems. If they are invested in the problems, they are more likely to develop the problem-solving capacities they need (“Integrating Signature Assignments, ” n. d. ). • Our curricula—including the work we assign students to do across the curricula— must build their capacity to succeed and flourish in a world of complexity, change, and interdependence. We need to work together on new designs for assignments that accomplish this goal (Humphreys, 2014). • To ensure that we are setting up students for long-term professional success, all students need direct experience—across the curriculum—probing and tackling unscripted problems. If they are invested in the problems, they are more likely to develop the problem-solving capacities they need (Humphreys, 2014).

• Signature assignments: • engage students in their learning, • enable programs, including general education, to collect common data across course sections for program assessment and review, • establish that learning outcomes are being met, in general education and/or capstone level courses, • foster curricular alignment, and • develop students’ self-reflection (metacognitive) abilities (Cain, n. d. ). • Practical reasons: • Demands for accountability by the public, employers, and government mean that we need to show that students are learning what we say they are learning and can do what we say they can do. • Institutions can also use students’ signature work to assess outcomes at the programmatic level, providing a valuable resource for evaluation and institutional change (“Integrating Signature Assignments, ” n. d. ).

How has signature work been used? • In general education when multiple courses meet common requirements and shared outcomes. • Provides a common data set to enable documentation of general education outcomes being met. • When multiple sections of the same course are offered by multiple faculty with varied pedagogy. • Enables programs to collect common data across the course sections for program evaluation and review. • When institutional outcomes are met in varied programs and departments across the institution. • Provides a common data set which enables the institution to determine whether graduates are meeting the institutional outcomes (Driscoll, 2011).

What are the advantages of signature work? • Promote faculty discussions of student learning, pedagogy, and assessment (culture of learning). • Provides significant common data sets to use in documenting program impact or institutional impact. • Yields insights specifically about achievement of learning outcomes. • Engages students in important learning activities. • Guides pedagogy. • Has potential for application or transfer to another department or institution for informative comparisons (Driscoll, 2011).

What are the challenges of signature work? • Require time for development. • May be translated as rigid or confining of curriculum or pedagogy. • Requires faculty agreement (Driscoll, 2011).

How do we get started? • Faculty review one or more of the agreed upon targeted learning outcomes and come to a common interpretation of them. • Faculty use the learning outcomes to brainstorm possible and aligned tasks, problems, etc. • First draft of the assignment is intentionally generic (in context) to allow for multiple disciplines and contexts. • Assignment is tailored for varied course or disciplinary contexts. • All faculty users agree to the use and to collaborative review of student work samples. • Faculty engage in conversations about expectations in student work, preferably design a rubric (Driscoll, 2011).

References Cain, R. (n. d. ). Signature Assignments: Definitions and Characteristics. Retrieved from https: //online. umkc. edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Signature. Assignments. pdf Discoll, A. (2011). Signature Assignments. Retrieved from https: //www. slideshare. net/Wasc. Senior/amy-driscoll-signatureassignments Humphreys, D. (2014). Liberal Education and America’s Promise: Why Focus on Signature Assignments Now. Retrieved from https: // learningoutcomesassessment. org/Presentations/SAWHumphreys. pdf Integrating Signature Assignments into the Curriculum and Inspiring Design. (n. d. ). Retrieved from https: //www. aacu. org/sites/default/ files/Signature-Assignment-Tool. pdf Signature Assignments. (n. d. ) Retrieved from https: //www. callutheran. edu/offices/institutional-research/learningoutcomes/signature-assignments. html