Houston Baptist University will offer graduate apologetics courses through distance learning in the fall and these courses will not require any exams. Papers will be required for these courses. The apologetics on-campus courses do not require any exams either. I talked with one of the professors about this and she said the assignment essay is a better method of assessing a student's critical thinking skills, writing skills, and knowledge of the subject matter than the exam. What do you think about this?
It is the norm for non-technical graduate classes. My degree at Georgetown University did not have many exams, but mainly projects, discussion, essays, and research papers. My degree at Southern Methodist University classes required mainly proctored exams. Most of the classes are 45% final, 35% midterm, and 20% term paper or lab.
Other than the oral comprehensive exam that I had at the end, my master's program did not have any exams.
My graduate program had one small exam at the end of each course, but 90% of the program was essay and project driven.
The masters degree I'm working on has had projects and papers instead of exams, too. The program teaches about the benefits of offering alternative types of assessments for students with different learning styles, so that practice is modeled in the program. I have been stretched by the assignments because I'm one of those rare students who really enjoys and does well on traditional exams. It's been good though because feeling a little anxiety about whether or not I'll be able to do well has given me a better understanding of what my students experience.
