FeedbackWorkshop discussions
Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha
20 March 2013
Workshops
- Comparing Country Approaches to Assessing Key
Competences (Key Co Net)
- Evaluation and Assessment: Policy and Practice in
Denmark
- Evaluation and Assessment: Policy and Practice in
Northern Ireland
- The use of ICT for the Assessment of Key Competences
Key questions
- How can evaluation and assessment be used more
effectively to support the acquisition of key
competences?
- How can we realise the potential of ICT to measure key
competences?
Key messages- Key Co Net
- A flexible approach needed in the use of the key
competence framework
- Assessment within or outside the curriculum?
- Assess key competences within the curriculum
(within the subject)
- Anchor competences in a common framework and win
support of stakeholders (e.g. Vienna, Austria)
- Ensure that formalisation and assessment of key
competences does not detract from teaching of key
competencies
Key messages- Key Co Net
- Cross curricular approaches facilitate and promote key
competence approach e.g. Finland, Sweden and Denmark
- Use of project-based assessments
- Increasingly in use to measure key competences
- Caution: need for checks and balances if work
completed outside of school to ensure social equity
Key messages- Key Co Net
- Portfolios have potential to assess key competences
• Can assess skills which exams can’t
• Used widely but varied practice
•Self assessment
•Inform discussions with parents
•In teacher education to promote self evaluation
• Challenges
-Time consuming for students
-Changing teachers to portfolio approach- use
contingent on perception of value
-Legislative changes required in some
countries to facilitate their use
Key messages- Key Co Net
• Potential of ICT to measure key
competences either alone or with paper
and pen tests
– Can accommodate a process orientated
approach (e.g. Sweden and Denmark)
– Facilitates electronic portfolios that follow
learners (e.g. Slovenia)
– Increases learner motivation
– Facilitate ease of feedback giving
and record keeping
Key messages- Key Co Net
• Challenges to ICT use
– Danger of measuring ICT competences
rather than the other competences
– Takes time for electronic and pedagogical
issues to be sorted
Key Messages- Policy and
practice in Denmark
- Challenges in developing an evaluation culture where
there is none
- Designing assessments to test competences can drive
focus on competences in teaching and learning
- Test students on how well they apply their learning
- Wide range of national tests and multiple forms of
examination
- Examinations are open book and open internetunseen texts and contexts
Key Message Policy and
practice in Denmark
- Potential of ICT
-Embracing ICT in assessments (e.g. open access to
internet by students) can drive its use as part of
learning in classrooms
-Can truly examine ability e.g. adaptive examination
questions in response to student performance
-Students interested in own progress and more eager
for feedback as immediate
Key Messages- Policy and
Practice Northern Ireland
- Bring about system improvement leading to better
learner outcomes is complex- different starting points,
contextual realities, choices re what to do
- Should align evaluation and assessment with other
drivers of improvement such as policy development and
curriculum change, building capacity of teachers
(instructional skills) and principals (management skills)
- System improvement not about quick fixes- need to get
building blocks right- graft and grow not cut and paste
Key Messages- Policy and
Practice Northern Ireland
- Useful for schools to benchmark performance and set
improvement targets in light of availability of
comprehensive data on schools similar to themselves
- School evaluation most effective when external
evaluation and self evaluation processes are
complementary
- Policy development more effective if schools see this as
being important to them
- Focus must remain on the learner
Key Messages- Assessment
of ICT workshop
- Need to move from a focus on the use of ICT for testing
(e.g. administration and scoring of conventional tests
and adaptive testing) to a focus on its use for learning
(e.g., continuous integrated assessment and
personalised feedback and tutoring)
- ICT can facilitate the assessment of the process not just
the result
- Pedagogical priorities should drive the solutions offered
by technology not other way around
Key Messages- Assessment
of ICT workshop
- Use a range of tools to assess competences
- CBA, quizzes and simple games
- E-portfolios, peer assessment and self assessment
- Virtual worlds/games
- Different tools can be used to measure different
competences e.g. e-portfolios- communication in mother
tongue and foreign languages; peer assessment and
self assessment- learning to learn
- Some competences present challenge for assessment
in e.g. attitudes, initiative and entrepreneurship
Key Messages- Use of ICT
for assessment
- Macro factors:
- Prioritisation at national level based on experiences
on ground
- Positive attitudes to ICT in education
- Investment
- CPD for teachers
- Get publishers to develop electronic environments that
reflect the curriculum
- Build teacher capacity- respect for work of teacher,
incentives, acknowledgement of those who use ICT,
establishment of teacher networks
Question for further
consideration
- How can we ensure that the assessment of
key competences does not undermine the
integrity of the key competences?