Creative Assignments in Upper Level Undergraduate Courses Inspired by Mentoring Undergraduate Research Projects

This article describes methods and approaches for incorporating creative projects in undergraduate mathematics courses for students of engineering and computer science in an urban community college. The topics and the grading rubrics of the projects go way beyond standard homework questions and contain elements of finding own project, incorporating historical background, inventing own questions and exercises, or demonstrating experiments to illustrate some aspects of the project. After analyzing challenges and outcomes of these projects, I identified several skills which help students be successful, including the skills of creativity. These skills are writing, oral presentation, math skills, and collaboration skills. I present ways to support students in evaluating these skills precisely and improving them over the time of the course. Then I present several examples of student projects, including students' solutions, and insight into how the students demonstrated creative approaches to solving the problems. The paper concludes with suggestions for implementing the projects and an assessment of the projects from the students and instructor perspectives.