Key points:
- Today’s college students come from diverse backgrounds and circumstances, and they all deserve a chance to succeed
- Renewable assignments–assignments that live on after students move on–help increase student engagement and motivation for academic success
- See related article: Equitable access can improve course completion and student success
Diversity in higher education has surged to the forefront of the national discourse: The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down race-conscious college admissions programs, and several states have passed legislation to shut down diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives on college and university campuses. Yet there’s no denying that today’s college students represent diverse backgrounds and identities, and faculty and institutions have a responsibility to help these students succeed.
Against this backdrop, the New England Board for Higher Education, along with other regional higher education consortia, have been exploring ways to ensure that all higher education students—regardless of their background or identity—receive a high-quality education. One nascent way that some faculty are engaging a diverse range of students is through renewable assignments.
As opposed to traditional assignments, which are transactional in nature and “disposed” of at the end of the course, renewable assignments invite students to create work that can live on and continue to evolve after the course. Examples of renewable assignments include creating websites, editing and contributing to Wikipedia articles, co-creating syllabi with instructors, and creating ancillary material like test bank items. These products can also be openly licensed, making them into open educational resources that students, educators, and others can freely use, adapt, and expand upon. Renewable assignments are fueled by the idea that knowledge is meant to be shared and built upon.
Anecdotally, we heard from faculty that renewable assignments—especially those that lead to the creation of open educational resources—offered great potential for students’ motivation, engagement, and sense of their identity being represented in their course. We designed a study to explore these ideas.
Lindsey Gwozdz is an associate professor and the scholarly communications librarian at Roger Williams University. She also serves as the Open Education Fellow at the New England Board of Higher Education
Virginia Clinton-Lisell is an associate professor of educational foundations research and a Rose Isabella Kelly Fischer Professor at the University of North Dakota. She is a primary researcher of the open education research fellowship.
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