How To Create Better Assignments

This labor can be a challenge for some teachers because everyday students become more demanding when it comes about their attention.

Teachers are at a war against all those distractions. They are exposed every moment to an infinite of information. Media through all the channels bombard them. And though this technology is good, there are few valid purpose with real value.

Anyways, right now getting the attention from students is an arduous task. Teachers create assignments in order to receive the proper engagement. However, the result is usually poor; or at least, it is not as the teacher expects from students.

Avoiding reporting

Reporting is great when students do experiment or research on something they need to get insights. But reporting as a way of direct learning is not much helpful. When we dispatch students to do reporting at home about a topic, most of them will just copy and paste.

Sometimes is not their fault... because basically that's what it is about. Reporting is describing something. That's why I said this activity can do better when used for investigations.

If we want students to have their own voice heard, we should make them do essays. Those activities put students into reasoning mode, where they have to analyze facts and come out with their own conclusions, giving more valuable inputs.

Make class's time valuable

The time during class must be exploited at maximum. Sometimes teachers do activities in class that could be done at home. For me, class time is better used if students discuss topics. They learn more if they already do some of the "pre-class" at home, and then go to school to express their ideas and expand the topics.

Even the strategies will have room to evolve into something else. Besides, we live in a world where time looks so much more important than ever. And that perception can be reflected in the educational domain as well.

That's why time must be managed in a way to reach the most productivity. If we do this, students will notice too. They can improve because unconsciously they maybe feel that there is a purpose for them to be there.

Create awareness

Monotonous assignments make students get bored. They just do them for getting a good grade. That's all. There are some exceptions, where you can see some students go beyond instructions and do more than the necessary.

But the average group will get along with the minimum. And this is a motivational problem. A good strategy is to build an atmosphere where they can consider the assignments above the mere assessment approach.

For example, the topics that will be evaluated are to be presented in a fashion way, so to speak. I mean, teachers have to give them a more personal touch, indicating the relationship with the daily life. That way, students will be able to perceive the functional aspect of the assignments.

Activities that require personal inputs

Like essays, teachers should strive to prepare assignments that encourage students to express themselves. I always consider oral presentations the best approach because we can know students' views.

But be aware because there are some criteria that must be followed. If students just stand in front of a crowd, repeating the words of a certain book, we're not doing anything valuable. And the time of the class is wasted. Those activities have to be done at home.

Now, to organize good oral presentations, we have to tell students that only their own views about the topic in discussion will be assessed with good consideration. In the same way, we need to tell them that everything they read should be managed as a reference to go further in their investigation, because the time in class (during the evaluation) is to express their own views and ideas.

@edave

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