Physics experiments and peer-assessment: an High-school – University project

In agreement with the latest EU recommendations in terms of key competences for lifelong learning, we present an example of close cooperation between students and teachers from secondary school, and professors and researchers from the Department of Physics of Politecnico di Milano. One of the general aims of school is to enhance the capability of students of making choices impacting their future, in a coherent manner with respect to their own attitudes and competences. For these purposes, the Italian secondary school system has introduced a dual system of vocational training Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e l’Orientamento, a mandatory project which helps students to discover their abilities and competences in relation with the professional world or with the academic world. Our activity is an example of this kind of project, involving 50 students of a fourth class and a fifth class (age 17-19) from two different scientific high schools. Each class participated in the project for an amount of 20 hours. The detailed plan of the project included four in-depth meetings on the topic of wave mechanics held by professors of the Politecnico di Milano, an experimental part carried out by students in groups of peers, their presentation of the experiment and a formative evaluation of the proposed work. The steps mentioned above were all closely linked to one another, in order to highlight peculiar features, attitudes and competences of each student. In the part of active involvement, students were asked to work in groups and build a real experiment concerning acoustic interferometry, collect and analyze the experimental data obtained and present them in two forms: a scientific report and a presentation. As a final step, students were involved in a peer evaluation process. Each group assessed the work and the presentation of the other classmates with the same rubric used by all the teachers involved in the project. In this work we present the activity, the results of peer evaluation and the feedback provided by students about the entire project