Major Assignments & Projects
The assessments you choose can shape the rest of your students' learning experience, so think about assignments that will promote engagement and excitement about the material, that give students a sense of ownership, a chance to connect their learning to things that matter to them, or leverage the online medium in interesting ways. For more ideas about developing engaging assignments or assignments involving high-impact learning experiences, go to the Creating Engaging Experiences page.
There are innumerable ways to create assignments, projects, or papers that align with course or module learning outcomes. Here are some advantages of using major assignments over exams in online courses (in addition to the difficulty proctoring exams in an online environnment, discussed below):
- Assignments are a great way to engage students and to help them see the value of what they are learning
- Students tend to distribute their time more effectively when working on papers and projects than studying for exams
- Assignments are associated with longer lasting learning than exams
- They are less stressful for most students than proctored, timed exams
- There are fewer concerns about academic integrity than with exams