Signature Assignments

Signature assignments are an embedded assessment strategy in which a common assignment is given to students in several different courses, sections, or co-curricular experiences. This assignment should be designed to give students an opportunity to demonstrate proficiency in one or more program-level learning outcomes. It’s important to note that individual faculty/staff may elect to adapt the signature assignment for their courses, but maintain core elements of the assignment that allow them to be assessed using a common rubric. This strategy can be used for final projects, papers, or even specific exam questions that are shared across different courses. The shared element is evaluated using a common rubric or standard, and the resulting data is aggregated at the program level to measure student learning of the associated learning outcome.

Key features of a signature assignment include:

• Embedded in a course or co-curricular experience
• Used for course grade and program assessment
• Aligned with program-level student learning outcome(s)
• Collaboratively designed by faculty
• Meaningful and integrative

How to use signature assignments for program assessment:

• Identify the student learning outcome(s) and appropriate courses using the curriculum map 
• Design an assignment (Is there an existing assignment that might easily be adapted?)
• Draft a rubric (criterion referenced is preferable to norm referenced, in most cases) 
• Gather & evaluate student work (see section on sampling)
• Aggregate & Analyze results 
• Use results to evolve the program (even small changes can be meaningful!)

In this example, faculty at Carroll University integrated signature assignments into core courses throughout the four-year curriculum of its undergraduate public health program. In the following table, you will see where in the curriculum each program-level outcome is embedded.

Table 1. Signature Assignments Mapped to Program Outcomes

* PBH 101 = Introduction to Public Health; PBH 102 = Global Health; PBH 210 = Public Health for Communities; PBH 324 = Program Development, Assessment, and Evaluation for Public Health; PBH 480 = Capstone Internship.

The program also developed signature assignment prompts that could be adapted by faculty as needed across courses and sections, but that would still retain key features that would allow for assessment of the program-level outcomes. Faculty also collaborated to design rubrics for these signature assignments that would help teaching faculty and students understand the expectations for learning toward each program outcome (and to help faculty scaffold that learning meaningfully across the curriculum.)

Table 2. Course and Signature Assignment Description.

1. AAC&U Signature Assignment Tool provides a clear and specific example of key elements to integrate and key questions the program needs to ask in order to draft a signature assignment for a critical thinking learning outcome. The guidelines provided in the tool are relevant to development of signature assignments related to any learning outcome(s) and are not specific solely to critical thinking.
2.  The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) hosts an assignment library on their website with example signature assignments by discipline and by degree level.
3. SCU’s Collaborative for Teaching and Innovation and Faculty Development created together these Digital Resources for Teaching (DRT). The content on Assignment Design (especially Transparent Assignment Design) is highly relevant to the development of Signature Assignments, as well as any faculty-created assignment designed to measure a program learning outcome.)
4. In this 2021 article by Quinlan and Pitt, the authors expand on the key dimensions learning that are measurable within signature assignments. This also may be helpful to readers who are developing their program’s learning outcomes: Full article: Towards signature assessment and feedback practices: a taxonomy of discipline-specific elements of assessment for learning (tandfonline.com)