Evolution of a Continuous Assessment and Feedback Concept in a Computer Science 101 Course

Abstract

[EN] Teaching first semester students in fundamentals of computer science is challenging due to the heterogeneous group. For the last three years we explored different methods of continuous assessment in the course. One main goal for this group of students is to encourage participation in the classroom while also being able to continuously monitor the learning outcomes of the most recent topics. All three methods: repetitive oral assessment, partial exam and online quizzes received good evaluation results from the students, showed an increased engagement and better examination results. However, continuous assessment also increases the workload for both groups: the students and the teachers. The combination of a partial exam (midterm) and continual online quizzes showed a good compromise with respect to the effort on both sides and reveals good examination results. This work describes a fine granular technical and didactical workflow of the lecture suitable for first semester students and discusses the evaluation results.