Foster Meaningful Learning with Renewable Assignments

Tags: Assessment, Assignments, Experiential Learning, integrative Learning, OER, Project-Based Learning

Description

Different from a traditional disposable assignment, a renewable assignment is an assignment where students compile and openly publish so that the assignment outcome is inherently valuable to the community after the class is over (Veletsianos, 2017). Renewable assignments can be scaled to graduate and undergraduate students across disciplines and take various forms.
One form that renewable assignments might take is in the form of open access books that faculty and students collaboratively wrote, revised, or edited. Such assignments can also lead to secondary learning resources designed to improve the understanding of current and/or future students within one class.

Link to example artifact(s)

Artifact One:

This is an open book coming out of an undergraduate course project of the Introduction to Environmental Science class at the Ohio State University:  https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/sciencebites/ .  The book is now openly available for the community to use on the Pressbooks site under the Creative Common License.

“This book was written by undergraduate students at The Ohio State University (OSU) who were enrolled in the class Introduction to Environmental Science. The chapters describe some of Earth’s major environmental challenges and discuss ways that humans are using cutting-edge science and engineering to provide sustainable solutions to these problems.” (Clark, K, Shaul, T., Lower, B. H.)

Artifact Two:

In Dr. Baiyun Chen’s EME6613 Instructional Systems Design at the University of Central Florida, students design free open educational resources for adult education. The end result contributed to the Adult Learning Zone: A Designer for Learning Project. See this document for detailed project information: Project- Design Free Open Educational R…Adult Education- EME6613-18Spring 0W61

Artifact Three:

Dr. Ronald DeMara has a Vlogger assignment in his EEL3801 Computer Organization course where engineering students create short online videos reflecting course topics for others as supplementary learning materials. Below is one student-created video that the instructor has later integrated as part of his supplementary course materials.

Link to scholarly reference(s)

Clark, K., Shaul, T., Lower, B. H. Environmental science bites. Pressbooks: https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/sciencebites/

Veletsianos, G. (2017). How do faculty benefit from renewable assignments? BC Campus: https://bccampus.ca/2017/12/12/how-do-faculty-benefit-from-renewable-assignments/

Citation

Chen, B. (2018). Foster meaningful learning with renewable assignments. In B. Chen, A. deNoyelles, & A. Albrecht (Eds.), Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository. Orlando, FL: University of Central Florida Center for Distributed Learning. https://topr.online.ucf.edu/r_1h7ucljsasbkbsd/.