A new blended assessment system for a basic electronics course

Abstract

We must educate and prepare our engineering students for their future careers. They need life-long learning skills in order to keep in pace with the fast developing world, and this requires versatile and various skills. The students need to be able to work in different ways. They have to take care of schedules and they need to divide their working time in a proper manner between different tasks. In addition, complex problem solving skills are essential for future engineers. In order to achieve the required level in problem solving skills for future engineering tasks the students need strong understanding of the subject matter (theory) combined with firm hands-on working skills (practical work). In this study, we developed and implemented a blended assessment system for a basic electronics course. With this system we wanted to familiarize the students with different ways of working and assessment in order to increase and diversify their learning skills. Furthermore, we wanted the students to clearly recognize the importance of even workload throughout the whole course. We collected written student feedback specifically concerning the assessment system in the course. In this study, we describe the blended assessment system in the basic electronics course and the results of the student feedback concerning it.