Transforming Assignments: Avoiding the Single Point of Failure
A Single Point of Failure (SPOF) is a term from engineering that describes a vulnerable part of a system. If this part fails, then the entire system will stop working. To reduce risk, good system design will incorporate redundancies so that if one part of a system fails, other parts of the system can bypass the failing part and carry out the task as intended.
The SPOF is also a useful way to think about multimodal curriculum design. For our purposes, a curriculum can be considered “failing” if the students taking the class do not learn what the class is intended to cover. For instructors of writing and communication classes, multimodality can function in the same way as redundancy does for engineers.
Failures of redundancy can disadvantage students in multiple ways. Two of the most widely discussed are: 1) students getting a good grade in your class when all they do is feed your prompts into ChatGPT or 2) students with disabilities or from disadvantaged backgrounds getting a bad grade purely because of assignment design, not their own competence or effort.
If all of your assignments are traditional essay formats, written at home and submitted as a final draft for grading, then the methods you are using to get your students to their outcomes (the assignments) have a single point of failure in ChatGPT. Your curriculum can also develop a single point of failure if you decide to lock down your assignments so that they can only be done in one way – for instance, proctored, longhand exams in class. In this case, the failure is not that ChatGPT will allow students to evade work but rather that your design becomes less inclusive and accessible. Inclusive principles stress that students should be given multiple avenues to approach learning outcomes and demonstrate growth over the course of your class.
Designing a resilient curriculum cannot happen overnight, but there are simple steps you can take using assignments that you have already tested to increase “redundancy” via multimodal, process-oriented design.
Assignment redesign for a moderately open policy
Moderately open policies allow for Chat-GPT usage in predefined situations with explicit rules. Students acknowledge the use of AI chatbots and document the parts of the composition process that were aided by such generative AI tools.
Example 1: Upper-division technical communication class for computer science majors
Pre Chat-GPT: This assignment requires you to study the genre of the proposal, analyze its rhetorical moves, and replicate them in your own proposal. Write a formal proposal of 1400-1600 words persuading decision-makers at your company to switch from using Zoom and Slack to using Microsoft Teams for company communication. You should incorporate the parts of the proposal that we studied in class (refer to chapter 4 of your textbook for a reminder). Formatting should match the example given, with single-spacing, a separate title page with name, title of the proposal, and date. For in-text citations and bibliography, use IEEE format.
Process:
- Complete readings on the proposal format. Study and analyze several examples.
- Participate in class brainstorming and peer review sessions as part of your drafting process.
- Submit the final version of your proposal.
Post Chat-GPT: This assignment requires you to study the genre of the six-pager, analyze its rhetorical moves, and replicate them in your own six-pager. The purpose of the assignment is to help you practice genre analysis, workplace writing, and running synchronous meetings. It will also allow you to compare the affordances of PowerPoint/Slides to those of Word/Google Docs so that you can make informed choices about the best medium for your technical communication in your future workplace communication.
Process:
Follow these steps to complete the assignment.
- Complete readings on the six-pager format, including tenets and FAQs. Study and analyze several examples of the six-pager.
- Discuss in class potential topic ideas for a well-scoped six-pager. Decide which topic you wish to write about.
- Write the six-pager and FAQ, following the format presented in Working Backwards Chapter 4.
- Print three copies of your six-pager and FAQ. Bring them to class and distribute to your team. Lead a 35-minute meeting on your six-pager.
- Participate in two other meetings led by your teammates on their six-pagers.
- Write a 300-600 word reflection on the meeting and your teammates’ feedback on your six-pager
- Submit the following components to Canvas:
- A six-page document on a topic of your choice. You may write about an ethical issue, a software issue, a business issue, or another topic. Examples will be discussed in class.
- An FAQ that anticipates and addresses likely questions of readers
- Three synchronous 35-minute meetings. One led by you to discuss your six-pager. Two in which you are a participant there to discuss your classmates’ six-pagers. To submit, indicate in the comments if the meeting was in class and write the names of participants.
- A 300-600 word meeting reflection. This reflection should discuss the reception of your ideas and your satisfaction with the running of the meeting. Did everyone speak and contribute? Were you able to facilitate a balanced, purposeful discussion? What would you do differently? What, if anything, changed your mind or challenged your ideas expressed in the six-pager you authored?
- An AI acknowledgement of 150-300 words in which you acknowledge the AI tools (i.e., ChatGPT) used, describe how you used these tools, and describe the ways in which they enriched your assignment as well as any challenges they presented. If you decided not to use AI tools, use this section to explain why.
Discussion:
The revised version of this assignment allows students more choice in terms of topic. This shifts the assignment’s emphasis from the end product to the process of coming up with ideas to write about, giving students the opportunity to demonstrate contextual knowledge. It also uses choice to be more interesting to students. The assignment moves away from a purely written mode. While the writing is still important, it now incorporates oral and team-based aspects through its emphasis on running good meetings.
While this prompt pulls from global insights to arrive at an assignment with multiple points of access for meeting learning goals, it is not “ChatGPT-proof” nor is it an attempt to evade the possibility of a student using ChatGPT to avoid writing. A student certainly could still run the assignment through ChatGPT and come up with a perfectly reasonable six-pager. However, the additional elements and scoping provide even students who choose to do this with additional learning elements such as being a good meeting participant, explaining one’s ideas, and listening to the ideas of others.
The assignment provides multiple points of access for meeting the learning objective of making a persuasive professional argument. Assessing meetings and reflections as well as the written assignment itself prevents a single point of failure. Even if a student does use ChatGPT more than you would like them to for the written part, they are still meeting learning objectives via teamwork, meetings, and reflections.
Assignment redesign for a “strict” policy
Strict policies typically forbid the use of ChatGPT or other conversational agents altogether. In this case, the instructor would minimize the amount of a student’s grade that depends upon take-home, unmonitored, traditional writing.
Example 2: First-year composition: comparative analysis paper (10%)
Pre-ChatGPT: Your first paper is a 4-5 page (1200-1500 word) comparative analysis of two of the texts we have discussed in class. Both texts must make arguments with historical, formal, and ethical components. Identify each of these components in a brief summary of the arguments. Then, discuss the texts’ genre, audience, and medium of communication. How do they establish credibility? How do they engage their readers’ and viewers’ reason? Their emotions? End of your impressions of why the authors composed the texts to begin with. What do they think matters, to whom, and why?
Post-ChatGPT: Your first paper is a 4-5 page (1200-1500 word) comparative analysis of two of the texts we have discussed in class. Both texts must make arguments with historical, formal, and ethical components. Identify each of these components in a brief summary of the arguments. Then, discuss the texts’ genre, audience, and medium of communication. How do they establish credibility? How do they engage their readers’ and viewers’ reason? Their emotions? End of your impressions of why the authors composed the texts to begin with. What do they think matters, to whom, and why?
To receive full credit, your submission must include all of the following elements:
- Attendance to in-class brainstorming and pre-writing sessions (2%)
- A rough draft (2%)
- Rough draft review and discussion with peers and instructor (in class) (2%)
- Reflection document of 200-300 words describing your feedback and explaining how you implemented peer and instructor rough draft feedback in the final draft. (2%)
- The final draft (2%)
Discussion:
This assignment revision is quick and easy to implement because it does not change the underlying final product, but rather redistributes the point values to emphasize process work. In addition to the process-focused nature of the revised assignment, it incorporates oral aspects with two graded in-class activities. While there is no way to know for sure if an AI chatbot was consulted in the composition process, the in-class work and the reflection help instructors and peers to hone in on a student’s original contribution via face-to-face activities with spontaneous questions and answers.