Center for Excellence in TeachingCET Review of Instructor Assessment and Grading Practices Guide
A guide for conducting a review of an instructor’s assessment and grading practices through the submission of graded student work examples.
Resources: All Disciplines
Brief Peer Review Tool: Syllabus
This document offers a peer review framework with criteria and rubrics that instructors can use to evaluate a colleague’s course syllabus and provide feedback on clarity, alignment, transparency, and student support.
Brief Peer Review Tool: Alignment of Assessments with Learning Objectives
This document provides a peer review tool with criteria and rubrics that instructors can use to evaluate how well a colleague’s assessments align with learning objectives and offer feedback on rigor, clarity, and equity.
Brief Peer Review Tool: Assignment Descriptions and Rubrics
This document offers a peer review framework with criteria and rubrics that instructors can use to evaluate a colleague’s course assignment descriptions and associated rubrics to provide feedback on clarity, alignment, transparency, and student support.
Brief Peer Review Tool: Active Learning
This document provides a structured peer review tool with submission guidelines and a rubric that instructors can use to evaluate a colleague’s active learning lesson plan and offer targeted feedback on engagement, inclusion, and effectiveness.
Student Use of AI in Assignments: A Decision Protocol for Instructors
This six-step decision protocol helps instructors determine when and how students should use AI in assignments by anchoring those decisions in learning objectives and core thinking skills. It guides instructors to map assignment workflows, evaluate where AI supports or undermines learning, and produce clear, student-facing guidance on appropriate AI use. It includes a note-capture template and a worked example of the protocol.
AI and Accommodations: Office of Student Accessibility Services
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, Crystal Velasco, USC Office of Student Accessibility Services, along with Jason Dove and Sakib Shariar from the USC Brightspace Team, explore how AI technology intersects with student accommodations, highlighting how tools like speech-to-text, captioning, screen readers, and note-taking tools are already part of many students’ learning. They also demonstrate how Brightspace’s Panorama tool supports accessible course design by identifying barriers, flagging issues, and generating alternative formats that help ensure course materials work effectively with assistive technologies.
From Accessibility to Capability: AI for Students With Diverse Visual Abilities
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, Erin Crutcher, a USC graduate student in the Healthcare Decision Analysis program at USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science, highlights the transformative potential of AI for students with low vision, demonstrating how these tools significantly improved her own access to course materials and academic workflows, creating a more equitable experience in the program and allowing her to learn at the pace of her peers. She also shares how using Tabular by Reliant to structure unorganized research data enabled her to accelerate a study on patient voice in drug development and move more quickly toward publication.
Accessible AI, Authentic Learning: Centering the Learning Process in the AI Era
In this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, Kendra Walther, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, argues for centering the learning process rather than polished AI-generated outputs. Drawing on examples from active learning and computer science, she shows how instructors can redesign assessments to reveal student thinking through reflection, explanation, and low-stakes checkpoints that support accessibility and accountability.
AI From Day One: Supporting Accessibility and Student Self-Regulation
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, Helena Seli, USC Rossier School of Education, and Julie Loppacher, Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity, explore how faculty can embed AI from day one to support accessibility and student self-regulation through evidence-based strategies focused on goal setting, organizing learning, and time management. They show how AI can help students create SMART goals, turn dense course material into visual study aids, clarify assignment instructions, and build weekly calendars that highlight busy periods and reduce procrastination.