Assessment - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 184

• A single and unique way to assess CS learners does not exist and different as-
sessment approaches are appropriate to be applied in different pedagogical situ-
ations.
• Different aspects of learner's knowledge and cognitive skills should be assessed.
• Assessment tasks should be varied in order (a) to relate to different aspects of the
learned topic and different cognitive skills and (b) to motivate learners and keep
their curiosity.
• Assessment should be conceived as an ongoing reflective process.
• The different assessment approaches should make sense, and when appropri-
ate, should be explained to the learners' (who take the exam, develop the proj-
ect, etc.).
• Teachers' feedback to learners' exercises/exams/projects may convey different
messages (sometimes hidden); therefore, careful attention should be given to
written feedbacks.
Formative assessment serves best learners knowledge construction. Our recom-
mendation is that formative assessment will be integrated along the entire learning
process using different class activities as presented in different chapters of the topic.
In particular, formative assessment can be integrated in the spirit of active learning
(Chap. 2), while emphasizing problem-solving approaches (Chap. 5) and in lab-
based assignments (Chap. 8).
Activity 80: Practicing Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment
Clearly, this practice can be used in any CS course and in particular in the
MTCS course. In the later, it can be facilitated at any time when students are
asked to submit a self learning outcome.
• Stage A: Ask students to perform the said task as an individual work.
• Stage B: Ask each student to: (1) evaluate her/his outcome; (2) reflect on
the self-assessment process; (3) present the measures on which the evalu-
ation was based.
• Stage C: Students exchange their outcomes and evaluate a peer's work as
an individual work.
• Stage D: Each peer compares and discusses the measures each one used for
the evaluation. This is done as a peer work.
• Stage E: Facilitate a class discussion on the affective and effective aspects
of both the self-assessment and the peer-assessment. Guide the discussion
to highlight the following main aspects: in order to meaningfully perform
self or peer assessment, a prediscussion on the actual measures should be
conducted; guidelines or a rubric should be provided as a base for these
kinds of assessment; self-assessment is an effective task when reflec-
tive processes are inherited in the class learning processes; peer-assess-
ment is mainly effective when pleasant and constructive class climate is
established.