On an adaptive formative assessment platform for STEM Education

Abstract

Formative assessment is a new method of educational assessment. In contrast to summative assessment, formative assessment constitutes a relatively modern assessment method, whose goal is to reveal the student's weaknesses to the teacher and help the teacher to design accordingly appropriate practices to aid the students improve their performance. Formative assessment application can be done periodically and can be categorized to short-term, when executed between classes, and to long-term. Several innovative assessment techniques for assessment in engineering education have been proposed during the recent years, such as the use of concept maps, assessing student's Learning Outcomes, five step outcome driven assessment and more, both quantitative and qualitative assessment methods. A smart system especially designed and implemented for the particular needs of engineering education and STEM education in general, is presented on this paper. Such a system is currently under development and tested for the purposes of mathematical education in primary and secondary education. If the right adjustments and modifications are made, it can work for STEM education as well.