The Augmented Assessment project, which is currently implemented in five European countries with the co-financing of the Erasmus + Program, aims at the educational integration of all students, especially those with a migrant background, through an innovative approach for the assessment of the existing knowledge of these students.
More specifically, the project aims to address the gap that exists in the assessment of the existing knowledge of newly arrived migrant students in the fields of Science and Mathematics, by taking advantage of augmented reality. This will be achieved through the development and piloting of an innovative online toolkit, which will include assessment tools using augmented reality applications. The project also aims to support teachers in the use and creation of tools and methods with the use of augmented reality, so that they respond adequately and effectively to the different learning needs of their students.
The Augmented Assessment project is based on a wealth of research data which emphasizes that the effective educational integration of students, especially those with a migrant background, begins with their successful placement in school grades that meet their level of knowledge as well as their psycho-spiritual development. However, because this placement is usually based on assessments that use the dominant language of the host society and because the language skills of newly arrived students in this language are limited or non-existent, these children are usually placed in grades that are inferior to their cognitive and psycho-spiritual level. As a result, these children lose interest in the educational process, perform poorly, and often drop out of school early.
The Augmented Assessment project plans to address the need for an adequate assessment of the existing knowledge of newly arrived immigrant students by proposing tools and methodologies that can capture this knowledge without the use of language but with the help of augmented reality tools. For this reason, researchers, experts and educational policy makers collaborate under the supervision of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and develop an innovative approach that will allow teachers and students to establish effective communication channels for optimal inclusion of all students in an open, friendly and democratic school environment.
Project partners which include the Athens Lifelong Learning Institute and the Institute for Educational Policy (Greece), the European University of Cyprus and the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute (Cyprus), the University of Helsinki (Finland), the Polytechnic of Porto (Portugal) and the University of Pompeu Fabra (Spain), have already started designing and implementing the major project activities. They collaborate with schools and teachers in their countries, so that all project products are piloted in schools and evaluated in terms of their adequacy, applicability and effectiveness.
The use of augmented reality is one of the most important keys for the educational inclusion of all students and for the support of the educational process in classrooms characterized by diversity and multiculturalism.
More information about the project at https://augmented-assessment.eu/
