ABSTRACT
Over the past several years, increasing effort has been invested interrogating the very structure of assessment in higher education. In addition to a rising awareness of the mental health impacts of high-stakes assessment, questions have arisen around accessibility and equity in our assessment practices. From this conversation, the practice of competency-based or mastery-based education has become a hot topic in pedagogically minded circles. To summarize, competency-based assessment is the practice of developing targeted assessments and standards of performance for each individual skill or outcome present in the course and building an assessment scheme based on how many of those outcomes are sufficiently mastered in the allotted time. A defining trait of these schemes is the ability to repeat individual outcome assessments as needed to demonstrate mastery, significantly lowering the stakes of any individual attempt. Efforts have manifested at every level, up to and including entire mastery-based programs. In this work, the five-year-long reinvention of a mechanical engineering computer applications course is examined as it was transformed from traditional to flipped to competency-based, navigating the onset of COVID along the way. In the most recent iteration, the course involves a framework of repeatable assessments across an array of outcomes, including both traditional exam format assessment as well as more involved project-based assessments, a set of video modules, and a group project. The rationales for and lessons learned from this journey are explored, along with student comments and evaluations, and an examination of overall course grades and achievement of course outcomes. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.