(464c) Reverse Engineering Assessments: A Project-Based Assignment to Substitute for Exams

Instructors are often challenged to design exams to appropriately evaluate student knowledge and mastery of course material. In the time of online learning, administering exams and evaluating student knowledge has become even more challenging. Students at home have additional hurdles to overcome while taking exams including internet connectivity issues, maintaining a quiet environment during the exam, downloading and uploading work, and completing the exam in a similar amount of time as when classes were taught in-person. Furthermore, proctoring has become more difficult, especially for large classes where all students cannot be seen in one frame. In light of all these challenges, Reverse Engineering Assessments (REAs) were created as an alternative to exams. With an REA, students are assigned prompts on various course topics where they have to write and solve their own problems. Students are given a week to complete the REA and are given freedom in how to demonstrate their knowledge and mastery of material in class. Students have enjoyed the flexible scheduling in their assessment and the various options to prove knowledge and mastery. Student submissions demonstrated appropriate levels of knowledge comparable to material covered on an exam.