Taking home exams or assignments are great, but they need to be assessed as well. Here too, the number of students is a limiting factor. With too many students, the best a teacher can do is summative assessment and generate a reasonable grade for the student. Personally, I think formative assessment is far superior to summative assessment, but formative assessment takes a lot of effort from the teacher. Often more than is allotted to her for assessement (or the whole course!).

I was thinking more about a larger project or paper with quite a lot of freedom for the students that would take the teacher hours to get familiar with and give constructive formative feedback on. As part of that, an oral section to discuss the project and paper with the student would be great as well. In assessment, I would like the teacher and student to be partners rather than opponents.

If a student understands the material, together they should be able to have a conversation where the student can reflect on her understanding and learning to the extent where the teacher can determine that the student has passed the course. Of course, if there is an intense interaction between the student and teacher throughout the course, the whole idea of a final assessment becomes pretty meaningless.

I know, my ideas are a bit far-fetched and there are a lot of practicalities that are difficult to work out. But one can dream!