Abstract:

Here we are going to show a new method of assessment tested at the University of Alicante, in the Computer Science degree for the particular subject “Architecture of real-time operating systems”.
In this method the students are involved in the process of assessment of their own works by means of crossed reviews which aim to identify the lacks or mistakes in the schoolmates works. As a result, the suggested improvements will be performed and assessed by students themselves in successive deliveries, and the quality of the works will be increased thanks to the overall work done by the class components.
Nowadays we have to face new challenges in the education world.
Among the very important questions we consider the degree of participation and commitment of the students in their own learning process and this implies they must participate in the corresponding assessment.
At Department of Computer Science and Technology we began some years ago to work in the implementation of a new and more participative assessment method that is based on these principles.
The subject “Architecture of real-time operating systems” has been chosen to test the assessment method. The results have been quite satisfactory and many pedagogical advantages have been observed.
In few weeks the students can understand the new organization of the teaching-learning process because they are obliged to review their classmate works. They have to update their knowledge every day and so they are more able to understand the new concepts explained by the lecturer. The increase of students capabilities has been observed in the theoretical classes as well as in the practical classes.
The presented method achieves the involvement of the students in their learning process. They are guided through a continuous assessment process which will be more successful depending on the degree of commitment they have made as they review and criticize the works they have been allocated.
The assessment process begins in the lecture hall, when the teacher provides the students the explanations they need to initialize the different tasks.
Each student has to perform three deliveries of his (her) own work and three reviews of other classmates (two times). The reviews will be next sent to the respective authors in order to let them know how the work has been evaluated by the schoolmates.
This joint to the delays causes the students deal with the subject every day. The learning is progressive due to the constant effort. As a consequence a high level is achieved in most cases.
The overall assessment will be estimated by the effort made by every student in the improvement of his (her) works as the sequence of deliveries goes along.
The experience of past years shows that the number of students that can pass has increased notably. This assessment method provides very good results and avoids the great number of students pulled out of the degree.

Keywords:

collaborative learning, evaluation, student engagement, assessment.