Teaching Sales: A Quandary

So, here’s an interesting problem I’m facing.  I taught sales for the first time this semester.  I would say I devoted about 2/3 of class time to going over problems.  In order to maximize active learning, I had the students hand in written answers to three of the problems each week, and that homework counted cumulatively for 40% of the grade).  

My students were amazingly diligent, often looking up cases referenced in the questions and reading through the comments to Article 2 of the UCC.  I don’t know what all the students thought about the assessment system, but a few have told me that they appreciated the fact that they had no choice but to keep up with the material, even if answering the questions was time-consuming and often frustrating because of either ambiguities in the Code or tensions between the Code and the caselaw.  

But here’s the problem.  I wasn’t born yesterday.  Now that there has been a group of students that has taken the course with me, their notes, including their answers to the homework problems, will circulate.  I think it is unrealistic to expect students (especially 3Ls) to refrain from consulting such excellent authority when answering the questions.  Unfortunately, the mystic chords of memory will swell when touched not by the better angels of our nature (as represented at left), but by a consultation with last year’s students’ answers, leading to idle minds with which devils (represented at right) are just as happy to play as with idle hands.

So how can I re-create this year’s experience without coming up with my own original questions every time I teach the course?  

Any suggestions — from any perspective: law prof, student, interested practitioner — would be most welcome.

[JT]