Instructional Tasks

Engaging students in opportunities for meaningful learning

Instructional tasks are classroom activities that engage students in opportunities for meaningful learning.

High-quality instructional tasks are...

Goal Directed: Address learning objectives focused on core ideas and practices

High Level: Engage students in high-level cognitive processing

Productive: Result in the construction of products that integrate key pieces of knowledge

Collaborative: Involve substantive contributions from all members of student groups

Open to Assessment: Include diverse opportunities for meaningful formative assessment of student understanding


Task Design

  1. The Task Design tool is provided to help support the development of high-quality tasks. Consider engaging with the template to develop a new task for your course that is goal-directed, high-level, productive, collaborative, and open to assessment.


You will be prompted to make a copy of this document and should save it to your personal Google Drive or as a Word doc. This helps you find it later and reduces clutter in your Google Drive.

Task Implementation

  1. After designing a new task or making revisions to an existing task, consider using the Implementation Evaluation document to evaluate the execution of the task in your course. Consider having a colleague observe and complete the task observation tool for you.


You will be prompted to make a copy of this document and should save it to your personal Google Drive or as a Word doc. This helps you find it later and reduces clutter in your Google Drive.