What does a syllabus do? This week we think about the syllabus not just as a contract or schedule but as a pedagogical document — one that communicates values, sets expectations, and shapes the student experience. As you finalize your signature assignment, begin imagining the full arc of the course it belongs to.
No discussion post this week. Focus on completing your Signature Assignment.
Assignments
- Signature Assignment (200 points) — A fully developed assignment with rubric and AI-integrated exercise for your designed course. Due July 5.
Signature Assignment Guidelines
Throughout the first half of this course, you’ve done a substantial amount of brainstorming about assignments and AI engagement in your future pedagogy. Now it’s time to take those ideas and refine them into one clear, organized signature assignment for your course. This should be a substantial assignment (rather than a low-stakes task like our previous discussion posts), and might include a formal rubric or a structured set of criteria for evaluation. This signature assignment should be something you could share with a prospective hiring committee, or an example you might use to excite students about potentially taking your course. Think about how this assignment might incorporate iteration or active learning, and keep in mind our goal of building transferrable knowledge that feels relevant to students from different backgrounds.
Your assignment should include:
- Context for delivery in the course. Will there be specific readings associated with the assignment, or iterative tasks that the students have already completed in low-stakes assignments that this work draws upon? Make sure to clarify anything that can be reused (like the ideas from our discussion posts!) and what should be revised and refined. While you don’t need to know exactly which week this assignment would occur in the course, it is helpful to have a sense of where your students will be pedagogically.
- Assignment name and overview. Write these sections to be student-facing, and provide as much detail as feels appropriate for their pedagogical stage and needs. Be transparent about the learning objectives, and remember the importance of linking signature assignments like this one to the students’ goals and overall needs.
- Examples or descriptions of successful work. This might include giving students an example you’ve made that includes all the required elements, or pointing students towards aspirational professional work that incorporates similar elements or goals. In practice, it can be helpful to ask past students for permission to use their work as examples (as you’ll see in Critical Making in the Age of AI), but for this exercise you’ll need to think about external models or build your own.
- Rubrics or criteria for grading. This can be bullet points like this example, or a more formal rubric for delivery in Canvas. When deciding on a format, keep in mind both your learning outcomes and the potential scale of the class: formal rubrics can be particularly helpful when dealing with larger or introductory classes, whereas more flexible rubric work better for deeper exercises in specialized classes like this one.
- Specific guidelines for using AI, and documenting that usage. Do you want students to include any prompts used throughout their process? Screenshots from using an agentic AI tool to accomplish a goal? A reflection on their work with AI tools, and any biases or limitations encountered? Be specific about what students are expected to do, and how they will make their process transparent to you.
Many of you have refined your vision for the course itself during this process: please add a brief note about the course context and any changes you’ve made with the documentation for your assignment so that we better understand your goals!
Slides
Readings
- Cohen, Scott. “Digital Humanities across the Curriculum, or How to Wear the Digital Halo.” What We Teach When We Teach DH
- McGinn, Emily and Lauren Coats. “Born-Pedagogical DH: Learning While Teaching” What We Teach When We Teach DH
- Mollick, Ethan. “Democratizing the Future of Education.” One Useful Thing.