Karin Landenfeld & Jonas Priebe & Niels Gandraß
Karin.Landenfeld@haw-hamburg.de; Jonas.Priebe@haw-hamburg.de; Niels.Gandrass@hawhamburg.de
University od Applied Sciences Hamburg – Germany
Abstract
Digital exercises support learning and understanding in addition to the lectures. They provide students with individualised learning opportunities and thus meet the heterogeneous needs of students. A major advantage of digital exercises is the possibility of receiving immediate, detailed and automated feedback, so that learning is possible at any time and any place. The use of digital exercises implies the use of digital examinations in accordance with constructive alignment. There are various formats for digital examinations that can be used to suit the desired teaching/learning scenario.
At our university, we have trialled various digital face-to-face examination formats as part of the mathematics degree programmes:
– digital interim tests,
– final examinations at the end of the semester in purely digital or hybrid form combined with handwritten assignments and
– digital portfolio examinations during the semester.
For all examination formats, we use a Moodle learning environment with the STACK task type and the associated graphical input via JSXGraph. The digital examinations are conducted in presence in a secure examination environment in the university’s PC pools.
We would like to present the digital portfolio examination that we designed and conducted in the summer semester 2024 in more detail. It is a portfolio examination consisting of three digital examination components, which took place evenly distributed throughout the semester. Each examination component was carried out in presence in our secure examination environment of the PC pools. They consisted of several tasks, all of which were entered digitally using the familiar input options. The tasks tested various knowledge, competences and skills and were assessed automatically, but checked again in a manual post-correction. At the beginning of the semester, students were given the option of taking the portfolio examination or a final examination at the end of the semester.
We would like to discuss the requirements for a digital face-to-face examination as well as the advantages and disadvantages. We would also like to present the evaluation results and student feedback. Out of 24 students, 23 students chose the portfolio examination. All students were very satisfied and would be happy to take a portfolio examination in maths again. The students cite two main advantages of a portfolio examination: 1. the time freed up for other examinations in the examination phase and 2. the necessary learning during the lecture, so that the maths content can already be used productively in other subjects during the semester.
Keywords
digital face-to-face examinations, STACK, Moodle, e-assessment, secure examination environment, portfolio examination