Extending Traditional Learning by Enforcing Collaboration and Self-Assessment

The paper presents a way to overcome the shortcomings of traditional learning by enforcing collaboration between students and introducing self-assessment as part of the process of final grade formation. Treating collaboration and self-assessment as two elements of a modern learning process that are very closely bounded together, the authors argue that these elements should by no means replace the traditional (ex-cathedra) way of learning but rather extend it. A specifically designed computer science course is presented as an illustration of how the introduction of self-assessment combined with teacher evaluation can encourage collaboration between students. The benefits and drawbacks of this method are discussed.