2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Design experiences are an integral part of engineering education to prepare students to become working engineers. However, it can be difficult to fully capture, assess, and provide feedback to students on design learning because of the varieties of way design instruction and implementation can happen (e.g., design courses, capstone projects, industry projects, co-ops, etc.). [PROGRAM] offers students a unique four-semester design sequence where they work full-time in engineering internships and co-ops while enrolled full-time in technical, design, and professionalism learning credits. This theory-to-practice paper describes relevant evidence-based practices in alternative grading and how they can be applied to design learning experiences. It is part of a sequence of papers published by [PROGRAM] that explore the use of alternative grading in technical, design, and professional learning experiences. Although this paper specifically applies these practices to a unique multi-semester design sequence that involves students working in internships and co-ops, the work can be applied to design experiences more broadly as well.

Previous iterations of this four-semester design sequence used a grading scheme where students earned numeric scores on assignments that were weighted into a final grade. Following the redesign, an alternative grading strategy was implemented where students earn “tokens” for meeting learning objectives or turning in acceptable deliverables. This approach combines the alternative grading approaches of standards-based grading and labor-based grading – allowing the instructors to identify both required learning outcomes to be met (standards-based), as well as learning experiences that they should participate in (labor-based).

To explore the impact of this change, assignment completion rates, assignment grades, and final grades were compared for individual students before and after the change to token grading. These results give insight into how students experience and prioritize design learning – especially in work-based models. Demographic data offers further insight into how this change impacted various identity groups.

Takeaways are presented for those looking to redesign a design experience, implement an iterative multisemester design sequence, use internship and co-op experiences as evidence of design learning, and/or use alternative grading strategies in other design experiences.