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We do not have any contact with your students. Instructors retain full control of the process, from designing the assignments in the first place, to specifying learning outcomes and attaching weights to each outcome. Instructors also review the work of our TAs through a step called the Interim Check, which happens after 10% of the assignments have been completed. Faculty provide feedback, offer any further instructions and eventually sign-off on the work done, before our TAs continue with the remainder of the assignments

Finally, upon the request of the instructor, the weights he/she specified to the learning outcomes will be rubric-based scores which are used to generate a composite score for each student assignment

As an added bonus, our Virtual-TAs provide a detailed, summative report for the instructor on the overall class performance on the given assignment, which includes a look at how the class fared on each outcome, where the students did well, where they stumbled and what concepts, if any, need reinforcing in class the following week.

We can also, upon request, generate reports by Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). This report can be used by the instructor to immediately address gaps in learning at the individual or classroom level.

Think of this as a micro-closing-of-the-loop that happens each week.  Contrast this with the broader, closing-the-loop that accompanies program-level assessment of learning, which might happen at the end of a whole academic year or later!

There's no way to predict which moments of a liberal-arts education will be directly relevant in the workplace, but it's imperative that students know such moments occur frequently, and that the skills and knowledge they're learning are far from obscure and irrelevant.

We use visual-thinking techniques to help students connect the dots between their academic experience and the workplace.

But the opportunity to teach a career course that directly draws from a liberal-arts curriculum is not offered at many institutions. Instead, if courses are offered at all, they typically focus on basic job-finding skills like résumé writing and networking, serving to reinforce professors' worst beliefs about career advising: that it distracts and detracts from the educational process.

Professors, academic deans, and career-center staff members must work together. Learn what is happening in each other's shops. And don't have just a superficial conversation about services—instead, engage in a conversation about what is truly distinct about the curriculum, what students are learning, and how to make employers care.

Career-center personnel should find out what employers are seeking and what they say about your students.

If more liberal-arts faculties and career experts get together, watch out—the results could be amazing.