Möbius: Redefining STEM Assessment

For years, instructors have agreed that frequent assessments are a great way for them to gauge the level of understanding of their classroom and make ideal interventions. This has also seen more importance given to formative assessments or internals.

Despite their obvious benefits, taking assessments is a time consuming process. Instructors have to create these tests, conduct them, grade them and then discuss results with their students. With the vast syllabus that instructors need to cover, taking out time for all of this is tricky. This makes implementing effective frequent assessments almost impossible for instructors.

The pandemic did see a lot of instructors adopt a digital assessment tool (more out of necessity than choice) that at least made grading a lot quicker. But these tools quickly lost their use when regular classes resumed.

Challenges in the Present Assessment Methodology

Institutes have continued with content delivery platforms like LMSs (or even Google Classroom) that also provide instant assessment options but these offerings fall short in dealing with the complexities of a STEM course. Some of these are listed below:

Lack of Question Types

Regular tools often struggle with evaluating STEM constructs like math equations, chemical constructs, physics diagrams etc. and will restrict you to use MCQs and Fill ups.

Organized Cheating

Even if instructors use the basic question types to conduct assessments, students simply use organized methods to cheat by sharing answers through an external messaging app. This makes the score of the assessment redundant and defeats the purpose of frequent assessments

Just the final answer not important

STEM questions might get to a single final solution in most cases but just matching the student’s response with a final value isn’t sufficient. Especially for frequent assessments, it becomes extremely necessary for an instructor to identify how a student got to the solution in the first place to identify what support the student needs. This is another reason why instructors put the time and effort into taking final answer assessments.

Möbius: A Multifaceted Solution for Assessment

Möbius, by DigitalEd, is a STEM centric assessment tool that fixes all these problems for you:

Instructors can now allow students to input STEM constructs like matrices, mathematical equations, free body diagrams, plots and code errors and also get them graded automatically. This makes it crucial for robust STEM assessment. Try this out here.

The math engine in Möbius allows you to create algorithmically randomized questions which means that if two students attempt a question sitting next to each other, they will see two completely different copies of a similar problem and hence can’t copy solutions off each other. As these questions can be created very simply without any code, this allows instructors to maintain the integrity of their assessments. Try this out here.

Not only does Möbius allow for automatic grading of advanced STEM constructs but it also allows instructors to create adaptive questions that layer a solution into multiple steps and get each step graded by the student one-by-one. With full control grading control over the students progress, this comes very close to an instructor manually grading the solution to a detailed problem by hand. Try it out here.

Conclusion

In summary, Möbius stands as a game-changer in STEM assessment, offering instructors a transformative solution that transcends the limitations of conventional tools. By seamlessly addressing the most common and daunting challenges, Möbius empowers instructors to enhance the quality and effectiveness of their assessments. The value it brings lies not only in efficiency but in the depth of insight it provides, marking a clear departure from traditional assessment tools and fostering a more meaningful and impactful learning experience for both instructors and students alike. Choosing Möbius is choosing a paradigm shift in STEM education assessment.