Supporting Formative Assessment and Appraisal by Smart, Competence-Based, Probabilistic Systems

Individuals have individual needs; this is in particular true for learners. Although there is a movement towards a more holistic and competence-oriented approach to appraisal of student achievement and subsequent individual tutoring, most common practice is still evaluating learning performance by a single numerical value – the school grades. And most often, these summaries are based on superficial, one-dimensional test items. This “over-simple” approach cannot express what learners really know or can do. Thus, over the past years and increasing shift from summative to formative assessment practices is noticeable. European school curricula are heading towards competencecentered approaches and feedback policies beyond mere grades or achievement degrees. What it takes, however, to realize such ideas and visions is sound theories and smart technologies unburden teachers and support them focusing on individual performance and needs in a formative sense. In this paper we introduce an approach based on so-called Competence-based Knowledge Space Theory. In the context of the European Next-Tell project, we are developing smart software solutions to support teachers in collecting information about the learners’ achievements and progress, to aggregate them in, and to profit from the bunch of information in form of smart multiple analyses and visualizations. Due to the CbKST-based logic, the system allows clear statements about individual learning progress and enables suggestions about next educational steps. Other scenarios focus on working collaboratively with e-Portfolios or cloud tools. Presently we are conducting field studies with the prototype software in schools in Austria, Denmark, Norway, and the UK.