Faculty Guidance

Faculty participation makes institution-wide Core Curriculum assessment possible. Detailed current-cycle instructions and deadlines will be posted as they are finalized.

What Participating Faculty Can Expect

1. Notification: Before the semester begins, faculty are notified when a Core Curriculum attribute associated with their course is scheduled for assessment.
2. Assignment identification: Faculty identify one summative assignment that allows students to demonstrate the applicable Core outcome.
3. Exact D2L assignment name: Faculty provide the assignment name exactly as it appears in D2L so the correct student work can be retrieved.
4. Supporting materials: Faculty submit the assignment prompt and the course-grading rubric, if one is used.
5. Student work collection: Student artifacts are collected from D2L during the scheduled assessment year.
6. Faculty assessment: Trained faculty assessors score sampled work using the institutional Core rubric. Individual course instructors do not have to score their students’ work with the Core rubric.

Selecting an Appropriate Assignment

A suitable assignment should be summative and should produce a student artifact that can be evaluated using the applicable Core rubric. Examples may include:

• Research papers or analytical essays
• Reflections
• Lab reports
• Selected examination responses
• Video submissions from Oral Communication (OCO) courses
• Assignments completed in languages other than English

Common Signature Assignment Frameworks for Multi-Section QSR/CCT Courses

Departments offering multi-section courses that fulfill the Quantitative and Scientific Reasoning (QSR) and Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) Core competencies are asked to develop a common signature assignment framework for use across all sections of the course.

What Is a Signature Assignment?

A signature assignment is a course-embedded assignment that allows students to demonstrate the applicable Core learning outcome. The goal is to identify or design an assignment that is integral to the course while also producing meaningful evidence of student learning for Core assessment.

What Should Be Common Across Sections?

A common signature assignment framework should ensure that every section:

• Addresses the same Core learning outcome or outcomes.
• Requires the same general type of student work, such as an essay, examination response, laboratory assignment, or project.
• Produces student work that can be evaluated using the applicable QSR/CCT Core rubric.

What May Instructors Tailor?

A common framework does not require every instructor to use an identical assignment. Within the shared structure, instructors may select different topics, texts, data sets, case studies, problems, or creative prompts that reflect their disciplinary expertise, course materials, and teaching approach.

Development Timeline

Fall 2026

Develop the framework. Faculty teaching different sections of the same course collaborate to establish the shared learning outcome, type of student work, assignment structure, and expectations.

Spring 2027

Pilot and refine. Faculty use the framework in their courses, gather feedback, and revise it to improve its effectiveness and alignment with the applicable Core outcome and rubric.

Fall 2027

Implement the finalized framework. The framework is incorporated into course syllabi and used across sections for Core assessment artifact collection.

This shared framework gives students in different sections comparable opportunities to demonstrate the Core learning outcome while preserving faculty flexibility. It also supports a consistent and manageable institutional assessment process.

Questions or consultation: Contact Dr. Theresa Gaul, Director of the TCU Core Curriculum, at t.gaul@tcu.edu.

When Students Do Not Normally Submit Through D2L

If students normally submit handwritten work, faculty may ask students to upload a single PDF to a D2L assignment folder created for assessment. Contact the Core Curriculum director when another collection method, such as scanning, may be needed.

Resources to Be Added

• Current-cycle dates and deadlines
• D2L setup directions
• Faculty survey instructions
• Assignment-alignment examples
• Sample prompts and signature assignments
• Workshop and assessor materials