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- September 7, 2019 Reading time : 4 minutesHow to (better) assess learners
As we demonstrated in this white paper, assessing learners can lead to many issues: stress, regression of learning, it is necessary to understand why grades and assessments are problematic. Should we stop grading? Should we assess differently? The problems Assessing has become problematic. Between 30% and 40% of American students experience anxiety due to exams. In French higher education, it goes up to 51%. There is also now a schism between learning and grading. From high school to the end of university, a learner is more likely to focus solely on his mark, considered the final reward, rather than the comments made to him. As exams approach, students are swept in rather than following a continuous process of integrating knowledge and skills. In France, however, teachers and administrations are asked to place the skills above the grades. Since the reforms of high schools, we even see the controls continue to take a prominent place in obtaining the baccalaureate. Nevertheless, « the French teachers coming to integrate the system are not trained or do not seek enough to train themselves to these new typically Scandinavian methods, » explains Aurore Tondelier, a college professor. We are facing a brutal change of era in Education, where past and future coexist and bring their share of contradiction. Should we stop Grading? Grades are more and more questioned. Some movements such as Teachers Throwing Out Grades propose to simply stop grading or reform the process. It is true, grades do indeed exist throughout the learning cycles, in elementary school, high school, university, professional life, so it would be difficult to stop everything, nevertheless, reviewing their importance or even the number of graded assessments may seem interesting! In Finland, learners receive 0 grades before the age of 18, so… Assessing is a pedagogical exercise that requires the same effort as building a course. Also, while it has been clearly proven that varying course formats is constructive for engagement and active learning, varying assessment formats may be too. Peer assessment, evaluation and traditional grading, self-grading, project assessment, positioning test, learning report etc. These are all formats to use through the same learning cycle. The problem, of course, is that it requires more commitment from the teaching team, professors or trainers. This is why continuing education for them turns out to be essential. (Better) Contextualize the assessment and the grade One of the most important factors is the context of the introduction of a grade or an exam. In fact, according to Svetlana Meyer, scientific manager at Didask and a researcher in cognitive science, the behaviour of the trainers and the context in which the evaluation is given determine the learner’s performance at first, but above all his relationship with the idea of assessing in a more global way. It is therefore up to the trainer to relax the atmosphere or to clarify it so that there is no perceived trap or threat for the learner. « If we are in a benevolent context, with trainers who value progress, who are not judging, and if we offer to learners a test presented as a diagnostic whose data are only at the disposal of the learner, the assessment will not give birth to a perception of threat, « says Svetlana Meyer; we can say that the learner will be more comfortable, more honest with his knowledge, his experience and will transcribe it better on a given test. When we take into account the importance of context and perception, we realize very quickly that today, we are still far from an ideal climate for learners. A notable pressure is placed on the latter, who must at all costs reach an ever-higher score to rise in a social hierarchy afterwards. It’s a system thing. Reintroducing the wolves in Yellowstone eventually gave a dramatic positive boost to the biodiversity of the park and eventually even changed the course of the rivers. In the case of assessments, a small habit, a context, a sentence, a posture can change the whole system and the view of the learner has about her/his learning!
- September 1, 2019 Reading time : 3 minutesNeuromyths and memory: how do we learn?
For this new WeTestEd video, we decided to venture into the cognitive sciences and especially the neurosciences. « I learn better by listening than by reading. » « Oh yeah ? » « Yeah, I have a hearing memory. » We all said it one day. We would learn better through one meaning in particular. Thanks to Didask, I realized that … Well it was a lie. A neuromyth. So how does it work? It’s quite long to explain, so the goal here is to vulgarize as much as we can. So let’s go. First, it is important to understand that, on the contrary, the treatment of information is carried out by all senses and through different actions. Also, the more we go through different formats of information and different kind of activities we do around a subject, the more we learn from it. This is called Active Learning. that is to say, to put it simply, the engagement of a person on a subject mobilizing his cognitive capacities in several forms (reading, hearing, action, speaking, discussion etc.). So, you should think about changing activities during class! Obviously, hiring someone into an activity and about a topic is difficult. There are various recipes to promote it, we will talk about it very soon. Mike and Sofia learn to play the guitar… Take the example of these two characters. Mike wants to learn how to play the guitar. He has one hour a day to practice. He plays on his guitar every day and repeats the chords he seems to need to master the basics of this instrument. At the same time, Sofia also wants to learn how to play the guitar, but she only has 15 minutes a day during which she can actually play her instrument. Nevertheless, she will spend a greater part of her time, on the way to the university, for example, to listen to music, to read between two courses of tutorials and the structures of the notes … Reading, action, hearing, thinking … A month later, Mike will have learned to master a number of chords and will certainly have learned a song. BUT, Sofia, she will be able to play a song certainly, but also to listen to the music to learn a lesson, she will be able to improvise using the chords she learned. Conclusion Learning and memory are areas teeming with neuromyths like the one mentioned at the beginning of the article. It is important, in order to ensure quality learning, not to fall into the different panels and to know not only a little brain function related to memory. What must be remembered is that learning is done by being active and by analyzing different faces of the same subject. In the same way, we approach different facets via different formats. The goal is then to make these formats as engaging as possible in order to maintain a general active learning state.
- July 22, 2019 Reading time : 4 minutesAre students today really digital natives?
Yes, digital natives. A generation that was bathed in technology, a generation that throughout adolescence, or even childhood, was manipulating technology.
- June 12, 2019 Reading time : 4 minutes5 pedagogies for 2019
Technology will never replace the teacher but rather help him to elevate himself and empower his methods and pedagogy. Thus, in this article, we will not just take a look at some Edtech tools, but rather on the pedagogies that can be enriched by these tools. 1. Peer Learning Peer learning is a pedagogy that lets learners manage their own learning together in groups, working on different thematics. No teachers here, only facilitators, coaching the learners and igniting engagement and discussion in groups. Peer Learning is a relatively anarchist pedagogy that has, for a long time, proved its effectiveness over more classical models. For more information on this, we invite you to take a look at our interview with Diane Lenne, founder of We Are Peers, the startup that reintroduces Peer Learning in companies and schools. 2. Speed Learning Do we really need that many years of study to master the skills we will need to upskill and ensure a better career? In fact … not really. That’s what Growth tribe, the leading growth hacking academy in Europe, claims. When you enter the through the gates of the Growth tribe academy, you’re bound to become a follower of the accelerated learning method. You start to apply what you just learnt directly into a work situation (especially by working with partner companies of the academy like Google). « This is called the training-action method, » says Thomas Lesenechal, director of Growth tribe France. At the heart of this method is speed learning. The principle is simple: « to concentrate on learning and mastering 20% of the concepts that will be used for 80% of the time of the collaborators, it is the Pareto law of the 80-20, » explains Thomas, for the rest, we complement our base of 20% knowledge and mastery with personal learning, experience and curiosity. The goal here is to master a subject to be able to take action and continue learning as quickly as possible. And it works. To learn more, we invite you to listen to our interview with Thomas just here and subscribe to their Youtube channel. 3. Immersive Learning Have you ever played a role play game or did a simulation and loved it? Tech is not a barrier to learning for you? In this case, Immersive Learning will make you dream. A little Virtual Reality, it’s not just to play. The goal is to transport your learners, like yourself in a simulated environment where you can put knowledge into practice while removing valuable learning data. Of course, we can’t rely on any solution to apply this pedagogy. Uptale is THE solution that has actually proven that tech can actuallypositively transform learning through Virtual Reality with minimal friction for learners. 4. Simulation and role play games Have you ever played a role play or simulation and loved it? Well, keep it up, but in class. Not simulations of situations are not new in pedagogies, they are simply still too little used in various fields. We gave you a precise report on the impact of simulations on learning here ! 5. Design Thinking Developed by Rolf Faste in the 1980s, design thinking is a method of solving problems through brainstorming and ideation. Nothing better to develop the creativity, analytical skills, organization and teamwork of learners. But that’s not all, design thinking has repercussions on the entire learning environment, from content to room configuration; administrative processes for exams. Take a look at this white paper ! You will find ideas and information to best apply design thinking in your institutions.
- April 5, 2019 Reading time : 4 minutesWhy You Should Do Positioning Tests
Svetlana Meyer is a cognitive science researcher associated with the Psychology and NeuroCognition Laboratory. She is also the scientific manager at Didask. Didask is a French startup, of Edtech (obviously), which offers an online learning method that has the particularity of offering a pedagogy anchored in the cognitive sciences. » We particularly like what they do for the world of Education. On March 13, 2019, Svetlana Meyer, Scientific Director of Didask, published Teaching Efficiency # 2: Beware of Misperceptions. First, we recommend reading it and even reading their blog DisDonc Didask. But a term particularly caught our attention. The positioning test. As soon as we read the article, we called them and hosted them as part of our WeTestEd session podcast, especially to learn more about it. So, what is a positioning test? Simply put, it is a diagnostic test that is provided to the learner before and after a learning cycle. The goal is to know what is the starting point of each learner before entering the learning phase and its point of arrival post phase. Until then all is well, this kind of test seems to be extremely useful and adapted to a pedagogy that could be described as « agile », or comparable to the Innovation Classroom Don Wettrick. However, it seems that this test is generally, and strangely, neglected by the community of trainers. Why? « In this kind of entity, the trainers have two main objectives: on the one hand there is pedagogical effectiveness and on the other hand commitment/ engagement. Their fear is that the positioning test is perceived by the learners as a context of performance evaluation, » Svetlana Meyer explains. « In our opinion, it is not the positioning test that will trigger this feeling of being evaluated, it is rather the context in which it is given; the trainers facing the learner and the language used which can be the trigger. If this test is considered as a simple diagnosis, the learner will never feel threatened, » adds Svetlana Meyer. Too bad! Especially that this type of test has many benefits. First, it allows you to precisely mark the learning process of each learner and this for two reasons: first of all this test requires a cognitive effort to the learner who will have to mobilize knowledge which is potentially already existing and which will thus reinforce the trace in memory associated with this knowledge there then there is what is called the illusion of control. As long as one has not tested his knowledge, one can have the feeling of being « super strong » on a subject whereas it is only when he will be confronted with a situation where he will have to mobilize knowledge that we will understand that this is not so much the case. Here the positioning test can clarify the learning for the trainers but also, and especially for the learner The positioning test is, therefore, an evaluation model with which trainers and teachers should reconcile themselves with because its contributions to learning seem to be more than beneficial! The lesson for this test, as for any other type of assessment of a learner (whether professional or student), is that it is important to work on the context more than the evaluation format. A detail can make a difference. « When we look at the grade for example. We see a lot of debates on the grades, on the forms they should have: do we have to put a number, a colour, an appreciation, etc.? Whereas what matters is its context. If the context in which a grade arrives is competitive, then the student will feel it and adapt to it, » says Svetlana. « The student will adopt a competitive posture toward others. He will feel his worth judged and will feel the need to protect himself from bad judgments. So all his attention will be captured by this need for protection against judgments rather than on his learning, « adds Svetlana Meyer. There is much food for thought when we know that the stress of grades and exams is very high among students, especially in higher education, and that it is one of the sources of skills deficit.
- April 3, 2019 Reading time : 8 minutesEdtech, Higher Ed: What changes?
This week we are talking to Rémy Challe, the CEO of Edtech France, the new association gathering more and more startups of the French Edtech. On the menu, the state of Edtech in France and elsewhere, its problems and opportunities for the future. Has Edtech really succeeded in changing Higher Education for the better? What are the inherent problems of education that hinder educational innovation? Many questions to which Rémy answered through his analysis. TestWe: So what is the state of Edtech in France? Rémy Challe: We are at the beginning of something there. 6 months ago I did not really know what it was for various reasons. But there is clearly a growth curve that is emerging. Now, although this growth curve is double-digit in France, when we look at the massive investments in India, China and the United States, you realize we French still have a long way to go. France is a country of education! We must be able to support our entrepreneurs much more and not just send them to CES in Las Vegas, if not in a few years, the tools we will use will be Chinese, Indian, American etc. That does not mean that they are bad, they are just, I think, less adapted to the system of values ​​of the French education. French Edtech becomes almost a question of sovereignty! T: What is the French value system? What are we claiming? R.C: There is a form of universalism, France is also the country of Human Rights. In a very pragmatic way: the protection of data, well, it is not known in the same way in France, China, India etc. And that, we must claim it, we must protect these values ​​and promote them in France and abroad. I sometimes meet entrepreneurs from the French Edtech who make 100% of their profits abroad. So that’s good, it means that they export easily and that the « French touch » is successful, but it’s sad at the same time because it means they have difficulties offering their solution in their own country, and that’s not normal. T: What is the feeling of the actors of Education regarding Edtech tools? R.C: (laughs) Well, there are various feelings. First, here, I would not talk about continuing education/ professional training, because Edtech is widely accepted and there are fewer dogmas. We are dealing with actors who are companies that are going through periods of significant digital transformation, and Edtech is already considered as a solution that one must be armed with to train all members of a company. When we talk about school in France (ie K-12) it’s complex, because there is a market that is a public market. In France, it is not the professors who buy for example, which is not the case in China. And even if they want to buy an innovative and relevant solution to meet their educational needs and those of their students, it is not they who will pay. You want to sell to a primary school, you have to go to the commune, you want to sell to a college you have to go to the department and for a high school, you have to go to the regional administration. And then the one who decides is not the one who pays, the one who pays may not be the one who will use the solution, and he may pay for someone else to finally use the solution, so you see it’s a little nightmarish. And then there is more dogma. First, there is the argument that education is free while there is always someone who pays in the end, and then there is always a kind of a distrust of the private sector. There is often this vision of entrepreneurs as sharks of finance when in reality it is far from being the case. In Edtech, we find almost exclusively entrepreneurs passionate about Education or people coming from the world of Education who seek to solve real problems. Whatever happens, we do not go on this sector for greedy purposes. Finally, there is this third silo which is that of Higher Education. Here we find private actors, public actors. Generally, in Higher Ed, there is a general awareness that Edtech could greatly help. This position is explained by several factors. First, there is an appetite for innovation, there is a climate of competition that pushes institutions to innovate. And then there are these 20-year-old students, who use their smartphone during their classes. So the question is not how to ban these tools but rather « the learner that faces me is not the same as one was twenty years ago, so I must adapt. » So there is a change of posture expected but also a change that is inevitable. Basically, we are moving from a time when the teacher was the only holder of knowledge to a time when knowledge is everywhere and we just need to know how to access relevant information, a time where we must learn how to learn and the teacher plays a determining role there above. The teacher must become … well, a coach. TW: What do you think about teacher autonomy? R.C: There are programs that the teacher has to follow, it’s clear, but after all, teachers have a certain pedagogical freedom and you have to have that freedom, through which you can choose your own methods, your own textbooks, and so on. TW: In the Finnish way? In Finland for example, teachers have total autonomy … R.C: So we’re not there but besides I do not even think that we should replicate this model in France. Finland is Finland, and then it’s a smaller country, the scales are different, the traditions are different. On the other hand, in France, there is still pedagogical freedom. The problem is that it is not at all extended to innovative solutions. So perhaps we should give more freedom to teachers as to their pedagogy, their methods … In Higher Education, on the contrary, there
- March 29, 2019 Reading time : 5 minutesShould we choose a university according to its ranking?
Today, if you’re not a part of the Higher education industry (not talking about the students here), how do you know if a particular university or business school is interesting, or simply good for you? That’s right, you look at rankings. Ok, you can also ask around you who went where and how the experience was but come on, you always refer to the rankings? Imagine for students, how much weight rankings add to their decision-making. Now there are a number of problems with these rankings. Teaching and pedagogy are not represented enough in the calculations Depending on the rankings and knowing only three rankings are considered internationally relevant (THE, QS and Shanghai), the quality of teaching and pedagogic innovation accounts for more or less 30% of a university’s overall grade. This is problematic because: today, pedagogic innovation in Higher education has become the most important factor in the success of students, not research. Indeed, proving you have a good quality of teaching means that in the end, students who’ll become researchers will have better backgrounds for their projects. it pushes the universities to invest massively in hiring professors pursuing trendy researches and not necessarily good pedagogic methods. Worse, it pushes tenured and non-tenured professors to produce a highly growing number of papers, researches, articles etc. Putting that much pressure on professors to ensure their status in the university prevents them from spending time with students or on pedagogy. In the end, it means less skilled students and a growing skills gap. Too many students, too few universities According to UNESCO, in 2030, more than 400 million students will enter universities compared to less than 99 million in 2000, so that’s a more than 400% rise. The problem is that it means we need more and more universities to open or new ways to manage that many students. See the problem? No? Well. University rankings are a symbol of elitism. Generally, no one ever looks past the first 150 universities ranked on the list and most of the times, these are all from developed countries (mainly the US, China and the UK). Knowing that most of the young generation is coming from Africa, the Middle East or South America or Asia, these rankings don’t help existing institutions in these continents even if lots of them are incredibly innovative or give effective learning programs. It pushes these universities to adopt elitist measures to try to resemble universities from the ?upper class club? It doesn’t provide a real opportunity for students to envision a future they’d like to reach if, for example, they don’t have the means to get to American expensive institutions or if they just don’t want to travel thousands of kilometres to study abroad Rankings as they are, propose a grim future. With the growing population going to universities, does it mean some will have to study through online learning only and via poorly engaging MOOCs while the richest more lucky ones will have the chance to access physically to the ?best? campuses? It shouldn’t be like that. These rankings aren’t appealing to students ?I’d be curious to hear if one student ever found his university good, or even decided to apply for a university, according to its ranking,? says Victor Wacrenier, CEO and co-founder at Appscho, a French startup that provides a campus management app. It is true that students consider these rankings as essential in the decision-making process, according to a QS survey, 70% said so. But the main reason is that rankings seem to be indicators of employability. It stays elitist. According to this survey, students are either over-relying on universities rankings, either need more metrics to understand what university can be the best for what they’re searching for. There is currently a rethinking of universities’ values as institutions providing skills and a culture of learning rather than access to jobs. ?It is a shift toward Lifelong learning? as says Patrice Houdayer, Vice-Dean at Skema business school. Rankings should thus adapt to these new values and propose appropriate guidings for a new generation of learners that have completely different expectations of their experience in universities and after. In Conclusion, rather than spending massive amounts of money to go up or stay up in the rankings, universities should adopt another strategy and invest in pedagogy and the campus experience to make sure students are trained enough for having a life long learning discipline, skills for their future career. Naturally, these students will take care of the reputation of the school. Rankings are needed though, but they must take into account much more variables like eco-friendly standards, pedagogic standards, innovation standards or campus experience standards. Accreditations are already on the move, so should rankings.
- March 19, 2019 Reading time : 7 minutesWhy Peer Learning is so effective
On the occasion of our first podcast WeTestEd, we had the opportunity to chat with Diane Lenne, CEO of the startup We Are Peers. We Are Peers is one of the Edtech startups currently in vogue in France. It must be said that they propose an innovative, effective and damn promising solution. What are they doing ? They develop Peer Learning within companies, in business schools and universities. They do this by hosting live sessions of Peer Learning and by offering a platform to manage peer learning projects, like a sort of LMS. TestWe: In your opinion, which are the most innovative between companies and institutions of Higher Education? Diane: It depends! What I can say is that with the companies it goes much faster, it is generally them who contact us to integrate the Peer Learning as quickly as possible. While with schools, it is we who must put ourselves in a position of proactive research and we must do a real job of education to reassure them in the benefits of our methods. But that’s also why we started on these two very different profiles. T: Do you have the same observation regarding the results of your projects with clients? That is, do you get positive results earlier in the businesses or in the educational institutions? D: Well the results are observable after a single session. So in this case it’s the same for companies as for schools. T: 3 advantages and 3 disadvantages of Peer Learning? D: So concerning the benefits I would say that: it’s a pedagogy that is very empowering it greatly favors the engagement of learners there is a knowledge acquisition that seems to be much more effective than with other pedagogic methods The inconvenients : it’s very technical and it requires a whole lot of organization it takes a lot of energy in the animation of the sessions, you always have to keep up the pace you have to be able to let go and know how to underpin valuable information from learners T: Should peer learning, in your opinion, replace a more traditional form of pedagogy like lecturing? D: No I do not think so, I’d rather say it should be complementary. We can say what we want, the lecturing remains a method that can be very, very effective! T: Let’s talk about MOOCs. I do not know if you could see a bit of the disco on this subject right now, but overall we wonder if the MOOCs are a failed promise, a success … What do you think? D: MOOCs are an innovation among others. For me it brings accessibility, but it does not change the course pedagogy. Moreover, the average completion rate is not great, around 13%. Finally, generally, MOOCs are very effective but only for a minority of people who are usually the most « educated ». So yes, it is an excellent innovation but must remain complementary to a more global educational strategy. T: Are you aware of other uses of Peer Learning, observations about its effectiveness, elsewhere? D: Yes! It must be known that this pedagogy is not new. The first, it seems to me, is the mutual class. This type of class allows children to learn to read and write in less than 3 years versus 5 years for traditional classes. But for ideological reasons this method was abandoned, especially because it called into question the place and authority of the teacher. Today some educators put the mutual class up to date like Vincent Faillet. T: Could you tell us about a success story that marked you with We Are Peers? D: Yes! You have to know that every success is the result of a collective work. Now for me a success story would be that of the course we created at EM Lyon Business School, which is still in progress. It is self-managed by the students and passed on to each other, ie the students of one session become the facilitators, the facilitators of the next. Some students have even become Peer Learning session facilitators in business. It was their internship or even their first job! I am thinking in particular of one of them who became part-time facilitator in a company of which he was a minority shareholder although still a student. He has facilitated sessions with more than 50 people, which has clearly offered him the opportunity to learn and proactively illustrate his skills, it is an example of empowerment! Beyond that, he also accompanied other courses at EM Lyon ? T: What do you do when a student is simply not engaged nor excited by the peer learning session? Does it happen often? D: Yes it happens sometimes, inevitably. But it’s absolutely not a problem. First, we try to figure out if this student might kill the vibe of the group. So basically we just go and see them talk and tell them? Are you feeling ok with this? If not what’s the problem? And you know this course isn’t mandatory so if you don’t want to come back, please do. In most cases, we try to motivate them in other ways and by explaining them more clearly what the exercises are about. But you know sometimes students feel simply too disrupted and you just have to let them go. To be sure everyone wants to be part of this course, we ask students to prepare a cover letter to show their interest in that type of learning experiment… And it’s quite effective! T: What do you think about the skills gap impacting Higher Education? Do you think it’s real? If so, then what’s the reason of this skills gap according to you? D: Obviously it exists and I think it’s because of the slowness of the educational system. It takes too much time to renew pedagogical programs and curricula. Take for example entrepreneurship. Ok, today you have many programs and courses of entrepreneurship but it’s not enough. We need more focus
- February 19, 2019 Reading time : 2 minutesA channel called WeTestEd
Hey everyone! We just wanted to tell you we decided to launch a new format of content called WeTestEd. Original no? WeTest (TestWe upside down) and Ed for Education? And WeTestEd like we tested this or that?. Ok anyway. Basically, it’s going to be podcasts and videos in an attempt to give you great, really great content to listen to or to watch. WeTestEd Podcasts Every week or so we’re going to interview actors of Education (students, professors, administrators, entrepreneurs, researchers) to talk about projects, innovation and about the state of education today and what we should change. The goal here is to offer a critical view of Education and go deeper than simply introducing people and their projects/research. The first episode is coming out very soon! WeTestEd Videos That’s the real challenge here. At TestWe we’re particularly fans of Vox videos. We’re fans of how they make it easy to understand complex subjects. We decided to try to do the same. We’re going to analyze Education, the problems of its system, its new pedagogies and methods with the help of experts we’re going to interview! The challenge here is to make the complex world of Education understandable for students as for professors and entrepreneurs. We hope you’ll like it, we’re going to do some in French, other in English, but always with subtitles! Be ready, it’s coming soon!
- January 31, 2019 Reading time : 3 minutes6 Ways You Should Assess Learners in 2019
Assessment is one the most important matter to take care of today. With the rise and demand for new skills, there’s a need for new ways to evaluate learners! What is sure is that standardized assessments are being left aside, little by little. Alternative assessments, on the contrary, are on the rise. Tech tools offer other opportunities to build new ways to assess learners. So what are the promising types of assessments for 2019? Self-Assessment/ Peer Grading Why? Because empowering learners by giving them the opportunity to self assess their work or assess their peers’ work is greatly helpful at triggering engagement! You simply make the assessment become a whole part of the learning process. You should definitely take a look at We Are Peers, the French provider of collaborative assessment system and peer learning management system. Or for more inspiration, have a look at what Don Wettrick has done with his students through his Innovation Classroom! Assess by Teaching Why? Because studies show that students put in the place of their professor, that is, making themselves the provider of knowledge, help them to better learn. What you can assess here is the precision, efficiency and concision of a student’s presentation to his peers as well as how well others have understood one subject. This formative assessment encourages communication between students and to that, we can only say ?YES?. Quizzes Why? Because Quizzes are a perfect formative assessment that can be multiplied throughout the year, which gives the opportunity to have access to data on students’ learning. Moreover, quizzes are very engaging for learners and bring interactivity and entertainment to the class. A very good example of a working solution is Wooclap. This Belgian startup makes smartphones great learning tools! A professor creates quizzes that will be sent to students’ smartphones during the class. The result is that it has been proved that it helped students facilitate long term memory. Roleplay Why? These are the most engaging assessments through which learners impersonate a situation to show what they have learned? in action! Concretely, it’s learning by doing. Thus, it gives an on-the-spot look at how much learners developed their skills. Here’s a study on the benefits of roleplay assessments! Pecha Kucha Why? Pecha Kucha is a Japanese method of presentation in which you must present 20 slides while spending not more than 20 seconds per slide. Efficiency, being straight-to-the-point, Pecha Kucha are assessments that can put under the spotlight skills that are very much required on the job market today. Here’s our study of it! eAssessments Why? Because it’s the most hybrid solution for assessments. Because it works with alternative assessments, it works with standardized assessments and it provides data on the learning process, indicating professors what to do to improve their pedagogy and better adapt their assessment/learning experience. Plus, eAssessments provide flexibility to professors who can manage their exams as well as learners who can take their exam on their own device, anywhere or anytime. TestWe? well? is a good example 😉
