High stakes mid-course and final exams have long been a dominant assessment model. But exam performance does not necessarily correlate with learning or students' ability to apply learning to real-life scenarios outside the classroom. Reliance on such high-stakes assessments can result in elevated learner stress during exam times and lack of learner engagement during non-exam times. Active learning requires ongoing student engagement, and assessments of student work completed in such activities are authentic archetypes of student learning that demonstrate student ability to apply their learning to authentic situations, problems, and issues. This article argues that assessment practices based on multiple, low-stakes, iterative assessments within an active learning environment provide more targeted feedback and engage students in their own learning as active participants, which leads to increased student success. The case study presented in this article is specific to foreign-language courses offered through online education. Combining best practices of learner engagement in the online environment and assessment in the communicative language classroom, language faculty in an open enrollment program developed an assessment model for asynchronous, introductory language courses that relies on multiple low-stakes assessments that culminate in a final, summative portfolio project. This article will offer examples of how the portfolio project is situated in the course and an overview of portfolio project topics. Example instructions and assessment rubrics will be provided. Data from the first full year of implementation will be analyzed to begin to assess the impact and effectiveness of this portfolio assessment.