I have been programming flash/actionscript for a number of years; is there a way I could make a Flash/AS3 project and export it as a .dir project? Or if there is a way to use AS3 as the language in Director?
You can make calls to and from AS3 and Lingo, although they are asynchronous calls, so you have to be careful not to rely on the calls being executed immediately. You can insert an .SWF file into a Director file, but you cannot modify the .SWF file directly in Director. Working between the two can be fairly tedious, and I would not recommend it unless you have a good reason.
If you are taking a course on Director, I would recommend that you learn Director and Lingo. There is limited expertise available on those, and it can make you more employable if you know how to work with them.