DESIGNING AND DEVELOPING PEER LEARNING ASSESSMENT SERVICES FOR SMARTPHONES AND PAD

Today, students are unable to immediately verify their learning during tests/exams as feedback is published after several days or even weeks. This is in particular the case for learning skills in vocational education and training, and in higher education in Europe. Usually educational institutions don’t have access to a high number of computer science labs where it is possible to run digital multiple-choice tests for all campus students. On the other hand, within a couple of years a lot of students will have access to cheap Smartphone’s with high-resolution pressure sensitive screens.

The article will report the current status for extending the SRS into Peer Learning Assessment Services (PeLe), that utilize students own Smartphones to enhance their learning. The PeLe prototype was operative in November 2011. The new open mobile technology based evaluation services have been designed such that they are going to improve industrial certification processes. The system design has a strong pedagogical focus, such that the usage of the assessment services is merged into the instruction and training process.

PeLe focuses on the development of new evaluation methods which require new, novel learning and teaching methods based up on active learning approaches in VET and higher education. The aim is to bring evaluation closer to real-world needs as it introduces a didactical methodology that combines immediate feedback after tests to students by using Smartphone’s, and elaborative and verification based learning processes, in combination with problem solving approaches where students do real experiments at the lab. The European Commission cofounded the R&D during 2011-12 as a pilot project under the KA3-ICT program.

PeLe provides a new online service where the teacher may provide on the fly verification or elaborative feedback to a class just after they have completed a test or exam. Each student uses Smartphones to answer and mark multiple-choice tests with a number of questions. An embedded automatic marking system is included. During the post-assessment phase the test results for a class are turned into an interactive, creative and collaborative peer learning process by use of immediate feedback:
• Verification by the teacher: why is the answer correct and why are the others incorrect?
• A peer learning discussion where the teacher displays the results and invites the class to take part in a 2nd chance voting. Each student decides whether to participate in the 2nd voting process, or instead choose to participate in a learning process that doesn’t affect his or her final score.

PeLe is designed to develop and enhance analytical and creative thinking, whereby it has the potential of reaching a wider educational community than currently used approaches based on final exams. The traditional final exam may be replaced with a system of several tests that may be carried out in rooms that have a WI-FI network. It may be used together with inquiry based learning approaches. Today, it is only possible to carry out evaluation approaches that use computer labs with a high number of PCs, which is an expensive solution for educational institutions, as they must be replaced within a period of 3-5 years. Students will, when they still remember the questions in the test, learn why the correct answer is correct and why the other ones are incorrect.

PeLe may be used in high schools, vocational education and training, as well as in higher education.