Signature Assignments - Santa Clara University

Overview

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!)

Examples in practice

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

Program outcomes	Course*	Signature assignment
Describe concepts of population health and the processes, approaches, and interventions that identify and address the major health-related needs and concerns of populations.	PBH 101	Healthy People
	PBH 102	Country Profile
	PBH 324	Design Portfolio
	PBH 480	Capstone Internship
Describe socioeconomic, behavioral, biological, environmental, and other factors that impact human health and contribute to health disparities.	PBH 101	Healthy People
	PBH 102	Country Profile
	PBH 210	Community Coalitions
	PBH 324	Design Portfolio
	PBH 480	Capstone Internship
Articulate the role culture plays in the health and health behaviors of individuals and communities.	PBH 101	Healthy People
	PBH 102	Country Profile
	PBH 210	Community Coalitions
Use existing sources of health data to track changes in major causes of morbidity and mortality for use in community assessment.	PBH 101	Healthy People
	PBH 102	Country Profile
	PBH 210	Community Coalition
	PBH 324	Design Portfolio
Describe features of health systems that promote the integration and utilization of disease prevention and health promotion services.	PBH 102	Country Profile
Identify the roles various health care providers, interdisciplinary health care teams, consultation/referral sources, and community resources play in promotion and protecting the health of the community.	PBH 210	Community Coalitions
	PBH 324	Design Portfolio
	PBH 480	Capstone Internship
Make ethical decisions related to self and society
Advocate for the protection and promotion of the public’s health at all levels of society.	PBH 210	Community Coalition
	PBH 324	Design Portfolio
Communicate public health information in oral and written form, using a variety of media to diverse audiences.	PBH 101	Healthy People
	PBH 102	Country Profile
	PBH 210	Community Coalition
	PBH 324	Design Portfolio
	PBH 480	Capstone Internship
Apply fundamental concepts and features of project implementation, including planning, assessment, and evaluation in a practice setting.	PBH 324	Design Portfolio

* 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.

Course	Signature assignment
PBH 101: Introduction to Public Health	Healthy People Exercise: This assignment introduces student to the concept of “burden of disease” using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Healthy People 2020) indicators. Principles and tools of population health are applied to select indicators including incidence, prevalence, and relative risk for high- and low-risk groups. Possible interventions to address the problem are evaluated in terms of when (primary, secondary, tertiary), who (individual, at risk population), and how (education, motivation, obligation).
PBH 102: Global Health	Country Profile: This assignment familiarizes students with basic concepts and issues of global health by assigning students a country for which they must develop a detailed profile of social, demographic, health, economic, and political indicators. Profiles are used by faculty, residents, and students in a global studies program at a local medical college.
PBH 210: Public Health for Communities	Community Coalition Assignment: This assignment introduces students to the importance of, and processes involved in the development and maintenance of community coalitions. Students review community-level data, select a local health topic, and “develop” a coalition that includes stakeholder identification and assessment, mission and vision, organizational and decision-making structures, root cause analysis, and evaluation plan.
PBH 324: Public Health Program Development, Assessment, and Evaluation	Design Portfolio: This assignment challenges students to develop an implementation plan to address a health need the student has selected based on a thorough needs assessment. The intervention must include goals, objectives, logic model, specific strategies for how objectives will be met, an evaluation plan, and budget.
PBH 480: Capstone Internship	Placement-Specific Projects: This assignment provide students with the opportunity to gain practical experience in a public health setting and apply and integrate knowledge and skills acquired in the classroom. Project goals and outcomes are site-specific and meet the needs of the student and placement agency.

Program faculty used these assignments (supported by student surveys and course feedback) to understand and improve student learning in the program.

Another example from Salt Lake Community College includes the rubrics themselves that are provided to faculty to use when they are applying (and adapting) signature assignments in their Humanities AA curriculum.

In another example from California Lutheran University, all of their signature assignments required for an Ed.D. program are organized into a table to indicate how program learning outcomes are addressed through signature course assignments (and courses). This kind of mapping can be very helpful both to understanding where in the curriculum program-level outcomes are integrated (and the level of mastery expected by the end of each course.) This “whole curriculum” mapping is a valuable exercise and guide for program improvement.

In this final example from CSULB, a signature assignment is used to assess a program outcome about writing (“Produce sophisticated academic writing related to the social and cultural analysis of education.”). The rubric for this outcome (see link) is aligned with the assignment prompt that requires a 12-15 page paper on a specific educational environment, conflict, dilemma, or phenomenon. Signature Assignment & Rubric for CSULB MA in Equity, Education, and Social Justice

For further reading

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.
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.
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.)
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)