Summative Assessment Strategies of the Student Learning Process with Global and Instant Feedback by Means of Mobile Devices

Author(s):

Clara Pérez-Ràfols(presenting / submitting)Àngela Dago José Manuel Díaz-Cruz Oscar Núñez Núria Serrano Xavier Subirats

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Poster

Session Information

22 SES 05 B,

Poster Session

Time:

2017-08-23

13:30-15:00

Room:

K5.05

Chair:

Christine Teelken

Contribution

European Higher Education Area (Bologna process, 1999) was launched with the aim to enhance the international quality and competitiveness of higher education in Europe. Its implementation implied a change of perspective related to the learning process, which is now centred on the student and his acquisition of not only knowledge but also competences. In this context, the assessment of students is not limited to a qualification at the end of the learning process, becoming a full part of it and being therefore a valuable tool for both the student and the teacher. However, the implementation of summative assessment activities that successfully fulfil the purpose they were created for is still a major challenge, particularly in theoretical subjects. On the one hand, non presential activities proposed to the students as autonomous work might fail to accredit the real degree of achievement of proposed competences, since there might be doubts about the real authorship of the task. This kind of continuous assessment activities are intended to be formative rather than summative. On the other hand, the large number of students in the first courses of university degrees makes the traditional assessment activities difficult to implement, since they are very time consuming and do not allow the teacher to give the student an immediate high quality feedback. Moreover, the great diversity of students, with different profiles, knowledge, previous experiences and learning styles makes it really important to provide high quality and constant feedback in order to improve the learning process. In order for this feedback to be effective, it has to be bidirectional and time-prescribed to allow the detection in time of learning issues and the review of key and specific topics before the introduction of new concepts.

Moreover, it is clearly visible the great changes and transformations that are promoting the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The proliferation of mobile devices, electronic communications, internet and digital nets is changing the way we work and the way we communicate. Mobile devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones…) are more and more present in our society and, therefore, the University cannot stay behind and has to integrate the new possibilities offered by these devices to the learning process. The introduction of mobile devices in classroom is intrinsically related to the use of web 2.0 tools. Most of these tools are provided with specific and free Apps for mobile devices, which make them agile and easily available to the students. These web 2.0 tools allow important changes in education, including an easy access to the information, the promotion of net collaborative work and autonomous students and an increase of student motivation and participation among others.

Thus, the aim of this work is to develop new teaching methodologies that promote the use and application of the ICT and, more in particular, mobile devices and web 2.0 tools that allow us to deal with two major challenges: (i) be able to really and continuously follow the learning process of the student and guarantee that he is achieving the specific knowledge and the proposed competences; (ii) have a constant, real, agile and easy feedback of the level of global knowledge and competences achievement of the hole group so we can detect deficiencies and act without having to wait to the final exams.

Method

The proposed methodology is based on the integration of mobile devices to assessment activities related to both formative and summative assessment. Moreover, this methodology has to be agile, allow frequent assessment activities along the semester, ensure high levels of participation among students to obtain significant results and guarantee that the student is individually answering the proposed activities using his achieved knowledge. Thus, the proposed methodology is based on short tests, ten minutes approximately, with questions related to key aspects previously treated in class that students have to answer in-person, allowing, in real time, the estimation of the current level of understanding of the whole class. In general, these tests will be based on multiple choice questions, although other formats like true / false or short answer questions could also be considered. These tests will be carried out using Socrative, a free App available for most mobile devices that allows the performance of this kind of test as well as the immediate interpretation of their results. The periodicity of these activities will also be studied focusing mainly on two different approaches: a time fixed approach where the activities are carried out for example every week and a topic fixed approach where the activities are scheduled after the end of each lesson. Both approaches will be compared considering the students’ results and their opinion, which will be collected at the end of the term. Regarding the interpretation of the results, different thresholds will be established to define the teacher actuation depending on the proportion of students that correctly answers a given question. Therefore, a question that is wrongly answered by most of the students will point out the need of an immediate feedback in class, whereas a question failed by a few students will only require some individualized feedback. Therefore, this methodology is intended to allow the teacher, on the one hand, to assess in a summative way the quizzes performed by the students themselves in real time and, on the other hand, to quickly display the obtained results leading to discussion in classroom clarifying concepts, revising specific topics, making suggestions and answering questions when needed. Moreover, in such a way, both the teacher and the student can see continuously if students are achieving the proposed learning objectives.

Expected Outcomes

In conclusion, we expect that the implementation of assessment tests performed in class using mobile devices will allow a real and continuous monitoring of the student learning process as well as a real summative assessment without requiring long amounts of time of dedication by the teacher. Moreover, the immediate bidirectional feedback that allows the proposed methodology will help the teacher to detect deficiencies during the course of the subject and, therefore, a corrective action would be carried out. This way, the continuous monitoring of the student learning process should be translated into a better achievement of the proposed learning objectives and therefore, into an improvement of the group’s results at the end of the subject.

References

- Brown, S., Glasner A. (2007). Evaluar en la Universidad. Narcea Ediciones, Madrid. - Brown, S., Glasner A. (1999). Assessment Matters in Higher Education. Open University Press, Bukingham. - Rue, J. (2009). El aprendizaje autónomo en educación superior. Narcea Ediciones, Madrid. - SCOPEO (2011). M-learning en España, Portugal y América Latina. Monográfico SCOPEO nº 3. - Martí, J. (2012). La importancia del feedback en las enseñanzas semipresenciales y a distancia (http://www.xarxatic.com/la-importancia-del-feedback-en-las-ensenanzas-semipresenciales-y-virtuales/) - Alonso, L., Blázquez, F. (2012). El docente de educación virtual (guía básica). Narcea Ediciones, Madrid. - Brown, S., Pickford R. (2013). Evaluación de habilitades y competencias. Narcea Ediciones, Madrid. - Brown, S., Pickford R. (2006). Assessing Skills and Practice. Routledge, Taylor and Francis, New York.

Author Information

Clara Pérez-Ràfols (presenting / submitting)

University of Barcelona

Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Chemistry

Barcelona

Àngela Dago