ALE 2009 exchange workshop
9 June 2009, UPC, Barcelona (Spain)

The JEM Thematic Network is organizing and sponsoring a workshop during the 9th International workshop on Active Learning for Engineering Education that will be held in Barcelona, Spain, on 9-12 June 2009. The workshop will take place on Tuesday 9th June, 2009, hosted by UPC, and is aimed at presenting some of the technologies used by JEM partners to the engineering education community. Attendance is free of charge but signup is appreciated by the organizers.

Objectives

Technology can be used to incorporate assessment into instruction in a completely new way enabling the instructor to accurately monitor students' day-to-day progress, and supporting students in their quest to understand the content correctly. This kind of assessment supports the learning process instead of only assessing the learning outcome.

Summative assessment can be used in a diagnostic way to direct students to courses best suited for them. Such diagnostic testing is becoming commonplace at universities and other institutes of tertiary study. In the US standardized diagnostic testing has been used for many years.

Summative diagnostic testing, and formative assessment for learning must be implemented with technology. Diagnostic tests can be administered from a central server, and students can take these tests as many times as needed. Students' responses get automatically graded, and students receive timely and accurate feedback. The diagnostic testing has turned out to be very successful.

Formative assessment, or assessment for learning (instead of assessment of learning) can also be implemented using web services. The assessment systems allow students to practice, and they give accurate and immediate feedback allowing students to develop their skills by taking similar practice suites over and over again. Formative assessment can be carried out also in the class room as a part of normal contact instruction. Students answer questions by sending text messages to the server. The system grades students' responses, enters the grades into students' grade books, and delivers immediate statistics to the class room as to how the class has fared with a particular question. Such assessments are called Real Time Quizzes.

The workshop focuses on technologies that make diagnostic testing successful, and which allow instructors to revolutionize their instruction by introducing real time quizzes in their teaching. These technologies form the basis of future assessment. These systems support mathematical notation, and they can be applied to all disciplines.

Program

We plan 3 or 4 presentations consisting of an introduction to be followed by a hands-on or demo session. A final discussion session aims at evaluating approaches and experiences in order to outline future perspectives.

15:00 - 15:50 M. Rosa Estela Carbonell - Assessing calculus students in engineering schools

16:00 - 16:50 Mika Seppälä - Using SMS Text Messages in Real-Time Quizzes

17:00 - 17:50 Sebastià Xambó - Design and implementation of diagnostic assessment at UPC

18:00 - 18:30 Final discussion

Stay Informed

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Location

The workshop will be hosted by UPC, and will be held in lecture room 102 at the FME (Pau Gargallo, 5. 08028 Barcelona)

Contact

Olga Caprotti, UH: olga dot caprotti at helsinki dot fi

Participants

Andrea Brose
Olga Caprotti
Deyanira Perdomo Cuéllar
Ramon Eixarch
Jaume Fabregat
Christian H. Kautz
Matti Pauna
Mariluz Osorio Quiceno
Mika Seppala
Sebastian Xambo