Purpose Statement Checklist

This checklist will help you develop your transparent design purpose statement.

Skills

• Does your purpose statement specify a skill or skill set that students will gain from doing this assignment?
• Does your purpose statement link that particular skill set to the larger context of:
  • recent topics of class sessions?
  • this part of the course?
  • the whole course?
  • the major? the discipline?
  • your institution’s main learning outcomes?
• Does your purpose statement indicate the relevance and/or usefulness of this skill to the students’ lives:
  • beyond the course? beyond the major? beyond college?

Knowledge

• Does your purpose statement specify content knowledge that students will practice while doing the assignment?
• Does your purpose statement link that particular knowledge to examples/contexts where this skill was important in the context of:
  • recent class sessions?
  • this part of the course?
  • the whole course?
  • the major? the discipline?
  • your institution’s main learning outcomes?
• Does your statement indicate the relevance and/or usefulness of this knowledge to the students’ lives:
  • beyond the course? beyond the major? beyond college
• Would this assignment benefit from segmenting it into several assignments, each one focused on a discrete set of skills that should be mastered to insure students’ successful completion of the next assignment in the sequence?

The Draft Checklist for Designing a Transparent Assignment was created by Mary-Ann Winkelmes in 2016 and adapted in 2021 by Amy Stanforth and Ann Matsushima Chiu and is released CCBY NC SA.