Assignment Spotlight

The Assignment Spotlight highlights innovative, effective writing assignments from UMN faculty across the disciplines. Check back monthly to discover new assignments to inspire your teaching!

  • Headshot of Laura Le.

    Collaborative Keys: Writing as a Tool for Discussion

    Collaborative Keys is an active learning technique designed by Laura Lee (co-developed with Ann Brearley) that provides students with the opportunity to work together to create an answer key for any activity or assignment. Students jointly generate and refine answers in a Google Doc while teachers provide real-time feedback. Especially in online courses, Collaborative Keys help foster a sense of community, with authentic interactions between students and between students and teachers.
  • Headshot of Kyle Bantz

    Effective Data Presentation in Chemistry

    Kyle Bantz's Figure 4 Report is a streamlined, four-part presentation assignment used in multiple labs throughout the semester for Introductory Analytical Chemistry. Designed to balance the workload for both students and TAs, it focuses on high-impact technical communication without the exhaustive length of a traditional report.
  • Headshot of Juanjuan Wu

    Designing Innovative Retail Environments in Retail and Consumer Studies

    Juanjuan Wu's virtual reality design project provides students with the opportunity to conceptually design a unique, future-oriented community grocery retail space for the year 2030, based on an understanding of local consumer needs and retailing trends.
  • Headshot of Phil Barry

    Exploring AI Ethics in Computer Science & Engineering

    In Phil Barry's ethics and computing course, a scaffolded assignment has students use generative AI to produce and analyze a short persuasive paper on some topic in ethics and computing.
  • Headshot of Emi Ito

    Multimodal Stories on Climate Change in Earth & Environmental Sciences

    In this assignment, Emi Ito challenges students to take a deep-dive into a climate topic and translate their findings into a group video presentation.
  • Headshot of Yvette Reibel

    Contextualizing Clinical Experiences in Dental Hygiene

    In her Dental Hygiene capstone course, Yvette Reibel provides students with authentic, academic, and professional experiences.