2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This is a submission for a Work in Progress Paper in the Faculty Development Division of the 2026 ASEE annual conference. We introduce the work of a newly formed learning community, comprised of faculty and graduate students from three engineering disciplines and co-facilitated by a faculty member from the campus center for teaching and learning. Our goal is to design, implement, and evaluate the impact of flexible assessments in three large enrollment undergraduate engineering courses in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Industrial and Systems Engineering. The motivation for our work stemmed from a faculty member’s experience with students who, despite earning low grades on exams, demonstrate mastery of course content in other ways and later succeed in their careers. Concerned that other students might not persist after poor exam performance but still have the potential to succeed as professional engineers, our group formed to develop pilot flexible assessment plans. These plans aim to give students the opportunity to demonstrate mastery over course material in multiple, substantial ways, minimizing the negative impact of poor exam scores on their grades and self-confidence. While we are beginning with this select group of three courses, our goal is to influence other colleagues at our institution and beyond to adopt this assessment approach. In our first semester, we are studying the literature on flexible assessment and identifying successful experiences in the field, to then move on to designing the assessments, which will be piloted and evaluated in Spring 2026. In this work-in-progress paper, we will share our insights into flexible assessments based on the literature and the three pilot flexible assessment design plans and approach to evaluating their impact. We invite dialogue on how to share our experience and expected success in order to influence other colleagues’ approach to assessment. We prefer a poster presentation.