ABSTRACT
Assignments such as term papers are often given for one main reason, to provide another, more qualitative means to assign student grades besides “objective” class exams and quizzes. In this context, term papers or class projects are seen as tools for diversifying the assessment of student learning, guided by the recognition that some students do better on papers than tests. Assigning papers then becomes a matter of balancing the strengths and weaknesses in students’ learning styles. Although this is a reasonable concern, it sells short the true potential of making students work on tasks outside of class. Too often, the chosen tasks appear quite random and only marginally related to the purpose of the course. There is a different approach to conceiving course assignments. Students ought to learn what types of problems and issues an academic discipline addresses and how it applies its theoretical knowledge to realistic scenarios.
