Improving Students' Self-Assessment of Numerical Analysis Projects

Students need self-assessment skills, yet in our experience, these skills appear to be severely lacking in undergraduate students. Descriptions from student interviews and related education research results suggest ways to increase students' ability to self-assess. Grading students' projects on how they form links to analytical solutions or physical situations will communicate the importance of self-assessment. Along these lines, explicit heuristics or strategies have been developed for teaching analytical problem-solving skills most of these include a final ldquocheckrdquo or ldquoevaluaterdquo step. An entire numerical analysis project could focus on self-assessment, for example, giving students a completed project and asking them to assess it, or (for less-experienced students) giving them an assessed project and asking them to evaluate or complete the assessment.