Abstract:

The Defense University Center at the Naval Academy, attached to the University of Vigo, has a special idiosyncrasy within the University Centers. Mechanical engineering students are also future officers of the Spanish Navy and they are under a military regime of life. Classroom lessons, labs, seminars, tutorials and in general any teaching activity must adapt to this feature. Moreover as University Center the priority is to adapt teaching and assessment methods to the European Higher Education Area.

Assessment methods in technical degrees are even more important than in other disciplines. Concepts and techniques explained during an Engineering lecture require of deep understanding so that the student is capable of solving diverse problems using the proper concepts and techniques. Therefore the evaluation methodology proposed in technical degrees should be oriented to comprehension.

Evaluation methods (focused on understanding and not only on evaluation) have to be more than a set of exams. Teachers need to have the proper feedback in order to refocus lectures contents. But the main aim of ongoing assessment must be oriented to the students. They have to know the quality of their performances so that they are able to do better next time.

This paper describes how to apply ongoing assessment methods to the subject "Thermal engineering". This subject is taught in the third year of the degree of mechanical engineering of the Defense University Center at the Naval Academy.

Personal interviews, interactive tests, or problem solving using teamwork, are some of the tools proposed in this ongoing assessment oriented course. We present the redesign of the course comparing the evaluation methodology used previous year and the new one based on ongoing assessment.

Keywords:

Subject design, ongoing assessment, mechanical engineering, thermal engineering.