How can student outcomes assessment (SOA) be incorporated into ones courses and teaching? The purposes of this article are to explore a process enacted in the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University using SOA to: (i) develop a clearer understanding of what students should learn in a course, (ii) determine how a course or courses fit within the curriculum, and (iii) improve teaching practices and ultimately students learning. An assignment from a required course in the agronomy curriculum provides an illustration of how an instructor can use a course assignment related to a program outcome(s) to assess how well students are achieving the program outcome and identify and implement course or teaching method improvements based on the assessment results. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)