During the Spring trimester of 2024, in the UCD ‘Robotics Design Project’ (EEEN10020) module with 54 first-year undergraduate engineering students, we deliberately revised the assessment strategy. We evolved a take-home assignment into a pair of supervised in-class exercises.

Even before the emergence of Gen AI tools, there was ample reason to structure engineering coursework assignments in a more timetabled and actively-delivered fashion. Lightly-supported homework assignments with long timelines loom over a student’s trimester, more often a source of distraction and guilt than an opportunity for deep work and quality learning. University teachers play a powerful social role, and have the power to set timetables and impose expectations. Let’s use that for good. It has always a good idea to proactively and deliberately create assessments that get the best out of students. The emergence of powerful Gen AI tools is just another motivator: now at-home assessments can easily be plagiarized in an undetectable way, so it is very timely to reconsider how we support students in their continual assessment.