Nowadays, we have a scenario marked by an increasingly complex and time-consuming formative
model, which differs considerably from that which has been used until now. This raises the need to
rethink, review and reconsider the teaching and learning model of today's universities with the aim of
designing a new educational model that responds to the new emerging training needs that early
twenty-first century society demands.
These changes in the training model make it necessary to rethink the existing evaluation processes,
which are going to be affected by strong changes. They are determined not only by the passage of the
traditional emphasis put on the teacher and the education, to the importance that is given today to the
lea rning and to the student as the centre of this learning process; but it also changes the purpose of
evaluation, moving from the acquisition of a series of academic knowledge to the development of skills
and gaining basic and more complex applied knowledge; but above all, it changes the role that
evaluation has in improving these learning processes.
The usefulness of the evaluation is not only in the ability that it gives us to verify the final performance
of the student's learning, but that it should also serve as a training element, which is integrated into the
teaching and learning processes from start to finish. Thus, the evaluation should serve not only to
assess whether the student has assimilated knowledge, but also to guide their learning.
This in-depth review of the evaluation process also involves thinking about the method and the actors
involved in this process. So, against the punitive nature of traditional assessment carried out by the
teacher who evaluates a group of students in an exercise of authority, it is necessary to think of
alternatives that involve and engage students in their own evaluation process and, therefore, in their
own training in order to achieve a lasting learning that will serve them throughout life.
In this new evaluation model, the actor who assesses is not only the teacher, but all those involved
have a responsibility to participate in the evaluation and self-assessment activities. In this way,
evaluating is a shared responsibility, in which neither the teaching nor the learning are stopped. The
student must participate in all activities to keep learning.
Thus, the evaluation should be understood as a formative and shared activity between teachers and
students. This will allow us to definitively know whether or not the teaching objectives, methodology
used, resources, assessment, etc. are responding as expected or whether they have to be changed in
time to get closer to the fixed goals. All this leads us to consider and to take into account in the
process of teaching and learning not only the more technical aspect of evaluation, but also its more
human, critical, reflective, formative and negotiating dimension.