AAACE 2021 Annual Conference

assessment, taxonomy, higher education

How can we best detect and monitor teaching-learning processes in engineering bachelor degree programs? A curriculum development process started within the Face IT project to answer this question. A new taxonomy has been developed to define a shared and clear lexicon to define engineering curricula content and the related difficulty.

The partners of the Face-it Project (Uppsala University, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, University of Padua) decided to outline a shared process of curriculum construction and description for the disciplines of engineering higher education programs. Alignment between all curriculum elements, authentic visualization and monitoring of teaching-learning and evaluation processes are pursued. Firstly, shared criteria and lexicon to describe engineering course content and the related difficulty are being developed. For this purpose, a new taxonomy was created. Effects of the integration of this taxonomy in the teaching-learning process will be empirically studied. The use by different universities of the same vocabulary and description of programs, together with a real assessment of students’ learning and technological support for visualising and monitoring it, is expected to produce various impact: a) on academic staff, promoting peer cooperation, facilitating the identification of good teaching practice, increasing awareness on teaching practice, supporting teaching choices; b) on students' learning, giving them accurate feedback and assessment on their learning processes and outcomes, increasing awareness of their learning processes, improving performances; c) on universities, improving the internationalization of programs, facilitating international mobility for students, promoting cooperation in the international educational community.