Process over Product: Rethinking Assignments in the age of AI

How do we design assignments that invite students to engage deeply with ideas rather than simply complete and submit finished products? Featuring faculty from across the University of Nevada, Reno alongside facilitators from Advancements in Teaching Excellence, this panel explores assignment design across disciplines, focusing on strategies that foreground thinking as a learning process. Panelists from across disciplines will discuss how they are rethinking assignments to emphasize process over product, using an AI-aware approach to build guardrails on the ways in which students use (or do not use) these tools while also designing assignments and activities to engage students in thinking that leads to deeper learning. Rather than framing AI as a threat to academic integrity, this session highlights ways in which we can intentionally design assignments to emphasize critical thinking, metacognition, and process-based assessment to support authentic learning. Dr. Barker will explain how fourth-year French students, enrolled in an Open Educational Resources (OER) course, integrate AI into the course’s primary scaffolded writing project. She will outline the design of the project, clarify each step of the process, and share examples from student work to illustrate both opportunities and challenges. By highlighting the ways AI supports language learning, critical engagement, and creative expression, Dr. Barker aims to provide concrete strategies for incorporating AI into classroom practice. Attendees will gain insights into balancing innovation with pedagogy, while also considering the ethical and practical implications of student use of AI in higher education. Dr. Munro will explore “ungrading” as a practice that emphasizes learning processes over final products, an approach particularly relevant in the age of AI. As AI tools make it easier to generate polished assignments, ungrading shifts the focus from outputs to authentic engagement, reflection, and growth. Through self-assessment, and iterative feedback, students learn to evaluate their own progress and embrace risk-taking. This approach fosters resilience, critical thinking, and adaptability while addressing AI-related concerns by valuing process and learning over easily automated products. Using examples from his MBA courses, Dr. Perera will demonstrate how AI can be integrated into assignments not only to generate solutions, but also to refine and extend them. Drawing on cases in forecasting and quality analytics, he will illustrate how students leverage AI for faster problem-solving and for producing rich, informative visualizations through effective prompt engineering. These insights underscore a critical lesson: while AI can serve as a “smart intern” to replicate and validate business solutions, a strong foundation in the underlying concepts remains equally essential. By blending domain knowledge with AI-driven tools, Dr. Perera will highlight how students can achieve both efficiency and deeper understanding, preparing them for a future where AI is not a substitute for knowledge, but a partner in decision-making and learning.