Instructors may choose a project or paper to assess learning for several compelling reasons. As a starting point, instructors often want to provide the opportunity for student choice. Students can be motivated by the opportunity to utilize their expertise and focus on areas of interest for them. On a similar note, where exams often ask students questions that have undisputed correct answers, papers and projects can ask students to contribute their voice to complex, important and unresolved questions, which also can be motivating.

Additionally, projects and papers are particularly well-suited for assessing learning objectives related to students’ ability to analyze, evaluate, and generate their own ideas.

Lastly, some instructors utilize projects and writing-based assignments in order to better prepare for their future careers, with products or skills they can share with potential employers, clients, or professional partners.

While there are a number of benefits that come from utilizing papers and projects for student assessments, there are some challenges for both students and instructors. On the student side, the challenges are tied to three common features of these types of assignments:

• First, these assignments are more open and, therefore, leave a lot of room for interpretation. As such, students may interpret expectations and assignment parameters in a way different from what the instructor intended. Similarly, when they have a wide amount of freedom and latitude, they may struggle to get started with too much freedom and feel uncertain about whether the instructor has “secret” expectations of which they are not aware.
• Like exams, papers and projects usually constitute larger portions for a students’ final grade. As a result, when they “get it wrong” (perhaps because they didn’t understand the instructor’s expectations), it can have a big impact and be difficult for students to come back from.
• Finally, because these assessments are complex, students may need to have skills that are independent from the learning objectives being assessed (e.g., how to write for an academic audience, public speaking skills, technical skills like how to record a video or podcast, etc).

On the instructor side, we’ve noticed some common roadblocks when it comes to assigning papers and projects:

• Though it varies based on the class size and the size of the instructional team, instructors can find the workload for assessing and giving feedback on papers and projects daunting.
• Instructors may find that grading papers and projects, particularly when students have a lot of freedom and, therefore, the products vary widely, can feel more subjective compared to grading exams.
• It can be difficult to assess whether students’ work is in-line with the instructor’s or institution’s academic integrity policies.

Our choices in how we design these assessments, support students as they complete them, and approach feedback and assessment can accentuate the features we like about papers and project-based assessment and mitigate common challenges and roadblocks. We regularly encourage instructors to design assignments transparently; scaffold assignments with low-stakes, incremental steps; find ways to increase formative feedback along the way; and utilize rubrics for consistent, transparent, and efficient summative assessment.

Papers and projects are often more complex, time-intensive, and provide students more choice and discretion relative to other assessments. Because of these features, it’s easy for students and instructors to make a lot of unstated assumptions along the way. Transparent assignment design, therefore, is more important than ever here. Winkelmes’s Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework is a useful tool for enhancing an assignment’s transparency. The framework often highlights three components:

1. The first step to TILT an assignment is to articulate the assignment’s purpose. That is, in student-friendly language, share with the students the learning objectives—the knowledge and skills—this assignment is designed to assess.
2. Next, specify the task. This means describing the final product, including decoding the genre. In addition, it means outlining the necessary steps (and their sequence) to make the final product.
3. Share the criteria by which the assignment will be assessed. Describe or provide examples of what high quality work looks like for these criteria.

TILTing an assignment can mitigate some of the common challenges students face with large projects and papers. When we succinctly provide the purpose of an assessment early in the instructions for students along with the criteria for assessment, the information helps students make decisions about where to focus their efforts. Not to mention that it enables students to self-evaluate their work along the way. What’s gained by specifying the task? Remember that, with our years of experience in a field, we often have a rich, sometimes even intuitive understanding of what it means to “write a business plan,” “conduct original research,” or “design a prototype.” This aspect of TILT helps students by bringing this valuable “insider” information to the surface.

Scaffolding a large assignment means breaking it down into smaller assignments that build up to the final product. If an instructor wanted to scaffold a traditional final paper, for example, they could add smaller assignments where students:

• Submit their thesis statement earlier in the term.
• Share 3-5 resources they plan to incorporate.
• Identify a counterargument they’d like to address.
• Submit a completed first draft.

Scaffolding papers can help students in a couple of ways: first, students, just like the rest of us, can underestimate the amount of time a large project will take. This may lead to procrastination and a rushed final product. Similarly, students may read an assignment and think “I get it—this seems straightforward,” only to realize, once they start the assignment, that they do have questions. If they put off the assignment until the last minute, they may learn they have questions when it’s too late to get answers. Finally, one of the biggest advantages to scaffolding a large assignment, like a project or a paper, is that students can “course-correct” before the stakes are high. In order for that to happen, students will have to get feedback along the way.

Papers and projects are often high-stakes assessments for students. That is, they tend to constitute a large part of their final grade, therefore, doing poorly on one can have a big impact. Ideally, if our students are headed off-track, we want them to “course-correct” before the stakes are high. In order for that to happen, students have to get feedback along the way. An instructor’s capacity to provide student feedback along the way can vary based on their context (e.g., the size of the class, the size of the instructional team, the other grading in the course, etc.). What are some strategies to make feedback in the formative stages of the assignment more manageable?

• Remember that feedback does not necessarily mean grading. For example, it can mean providing oral class-wide feedback after reviewing students’ submissions (“Here are three things I want to emphasize to the class, having reviewed your submissions…”). It can also mean dedicating part of a class session to Q&A after a submission due date.
• Develop a peer feedback process. Our colleagues at the Sweetland Center for Writing have developed a thoughtful guide to implementing a peer feedback process. We want to highlight their discussion of the importance of teaching students how to give effective feedback on a classmate’s work. One approach to developing these skills is to practice together on a common example from prior years.
• If students are at a stage of the process where they need more individualized feedback, start to build a “comment library” or “feedback bank” for topics that tend to emerge regularly as you consider student work. You can keep this library in a digital document or use the comment library in Canvas Speedgrader.

While our focus here is how to provide formative feedback while managing the workload, there’s a lot more to the topic of providing useful and motivating feedback to students. An excellent starting point here is the Sweetland Center for Writing’s Guide to Giving Feedback on Student Writing—and the guide extends to project-based assignments too.

Assessing student papers and projects can be difficult because, when we give students’ choice and discretion, their final products can look quite different from each other. Instructors may worry that the grading will seem more subjective. Not to mention that assessing these assignments can be quite time-consuming. For all these reasons, we encourage instructors to utilize rubrics to assess student papers and projects.

A rubric is a tool that outlines how an instructor will approach grading. It details:

• What specific aspects of a student's work will be evaluated?
• What criteria will be used to evaluate a student's work?
• How does assessment on these components translate into a grade?

In addition to the benefits to instructors, when we share our rubrics with students early in the process, this transparency helps students to focus their efforts and guide their decisions as they work.

Our colleagues at the Sweetland Center for Writing have developed a number of resources to guide instructors in the development and implementation of rubrics. If you aren’t sure if rubrics are right for you, we hope you’ll explore the different models of rubrics, from analytical rubrics—the model that usually comes to mind if you’ve encountered rubrics—to holistic rubrics and a checklist approach.