Transforming a Course with a Traditional Evaluation into a Competency-Based Assessment Approach: a Practical Experiment

Abstract

This innovative practice work-in-progress paper presents how a course with a traditional evaluation method has been concretely transformed into one following a competency-based assessment approach. This transformation has been carried out in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore also included a set-up for remote education. Transforming a course from one pedagogical device to another one is not easy. This paper explains how the transformation has been carried out, for several aspects: schedule, activities, course material, communication, etc. The transformation mainly aims at improving the quality of students' evaluation and their learning experience, making it more personalised and individualised. It expects to improve students' involvement and offer them a way to better manage their own time and to gain autonomy. This paper presents the experiment that was carried out and reports on the results from the students' and teachers' perspectives, based on qualitative and quantitative data collected with a survey. It concludes with lessons learned, improvement directions and ideas for future editions of the course, should they be organised on-site, online, or following a hybrid approach.