Skills

Artikels

TRAILER: Tagging, recognition and acknowledgment of informal learning experiences

24 April 2013

This paper appears in the post-proceedings of The International Symposium on Computers in Education (SIIE 2012) in IEEE Xplore.

The evolution of new technology and its increasing use, have for some years been making the existence of informal learning more and more transparent, especially among young and older adults in both Higher Education and workplace contexts.

 

However, the nature of formal and non-formal, course-based, approaches to learning has made it hard to accommodate these informal processes satisfactorily, and although technology bring us near to the solution, it has not yet achieved.

 

TRAILER project aims to address this problem by developing a tool for the management of competences and skills acquired through informal learning experiences, both from the perspective of the user and the institution or company. This paper describes the research and development main lines of this project.

Informal learning, tagging, recognition, Competence, Skills, Education, ICT, project
Directory

Assessment of Learning in Digital Social Networks

07 Maart 2013

This paper summarizes ATC21S assessments for ICT Literacy, including a description of data (collected in Fall 2011 studies in Australia, Finland, Singapore and the U.S.) and discussion on how assessment outcomes can be reported. ATC21S aims to help educators around the world equip students with 21st century skills to succeed in career and college goals, including problem-solving, digital literacy and working together in learning communities.

eSkills, new skills, Skills, networks, collaborative networks, ICT
Directory

A Framework for Teachable Collaborative Problem Solving Skills

04 Maart 2013

 

Collaborative problem solving draws upon social and cognitive skills that can be analysed in classroom environments where they are both measurable and teachable. This paper provides a conceptual framework of collaborative problem solving that is informed by findings from fields of research as diverse as cognitive science, education, social psychology and psycholinguistics.
eSkills, new skills, Skills, Creativity
Directory

Policy Frameworks for New Assessments

28 Februari 2013

The ultimate goal of the project is to move from small marginal pilot projects to implementing new forms of assessment within a coherent teaching and learning system. This paper focuses on the reform needed in school and government systems to achieve this shift.

Many nations around the world have undertaken wide-ranging reforms of curriculum, instruction, and assessments with the intention of better preparing all children for the higher educational demands of life and work in the 21st century. While large-scale testing systems in some countries emphasize multiple-choice items that evaluate recall and recognition of discrete facts, there is growing use of more sophisticated approaches in many countries. These approaches include not only more analytical selected response items but also open-ended items and curriculum-embedded tasks that require students to analyze, apply knowledge, and communicate more extensively, both orally and in writing. A growing emphasis on project-based, inquiry-oriented learning has led to increasing prominence for school-based tasks in state and national systems, including research projects, science investigations, use of technology to access information and solve authentic problems, development of products, and presentations about these efforts.
 
This paper briefly describes the policy frameworks for assessment systems in Australia, Finland, Singapore and the United Kingdom, with special attention to identifying where assessment of 21st century skills has been or may be developed in assessment systems that report information at the national or state, as well as local, levels. Identifying the role of 21st century skills within these assessment systems serves two purposes. First, this process furthers knowledge about distinct approaches to the integration of 21st century skills in countries with different educational governance systems. Second, it provides information about how assessment systems work within the broader policy landscape of each country that determines student learning opportunities through the construction of policies governing teacher education and development, as well as curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
 
new skills, Skills, eSkills, change in higher education, policy recommendations
Directory

New Assessments and Environments for Knowledge Building

28 Februari 2013

This paper looks at innovative ways to improve the development of 21st-century skills in students both individually and in groups, considering both formal and informal learning opportunities.

In this paper we review literature on knowledge-creating organizations to identify sequences leading from entry-level 21st century skills to mature levels of the skills defined by the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. We suggest a developmental scheme to allow students and teachers in any classroom to find a starting point and advance along dimensions identified. In a fully developed knowledge building environment, the ways people and ideas interact are critical to the integration of deep understanding, knowledge creation, and practical action. After proposing a framework for moving toward high-end knowledge environments we consider basic principles of learning and developmental trajectories relevant to them. We distinguish two approaches: “working backward from goals” and “emergence of new skills.” We discuss how modern technologies can help integrate and enhance these different approaches, how formative assessments can be used to increase the pace of innovation, and how a broader systems perspective might inform large-scale summative assessments.
 
An analytic framework, with developmental trajectories defined by 21st century skills, is provided for analyzing environments in light of the extent to which they support knowledge creation. Our goal is to provide a scheme comprehensive enough to identify starting points, as well as pathways to higher-order achievements for all, from elementary through to tertiary education, and applicable to out-of-school contexts, so as to support an inclusive model of 21st century knowledge building. We also aim to distinguish efforts that prepare students for work in knowledge-creating organizations after they leave school from those that aim to transform schools to operate as knowledge-creating organizations in their own right. We end with suggestions for new initiatives to help advance
education for a knowledge-building society.
 
eSkills, new skills, Skills, active learning, formal learning, Informal learning, Education
Directory

Technological Issues

28 Februari 2013

This paper identifies and analyzes various technological problems in computer-based assessment of 21st-century skills, with suggested solutions.

This paper reviews the contribution of new information-communication technologies to the advancement of educational assessment. Improvements can be described in terms of precision in detecting the actual values of the observed variables, efficiency in collecting and processing information, and speed and frequency of feedback given for the participants and stakeholders. It reviews previous research and development in two ways, describing the main tendencies in four continents (Asia, Australia, Europe and the US) and summarizing research on how technology advances assessment in some crucial dimensions (assessment of established constructs, extension of assessment domains, assessment of new constructs and in dynamic situations).

 

As there is a great variety of applications of assessment in education, each one requiring different technological solutions, the paper classifies assessment domains, purposes and contexts and identifies the technological needs and solutions for each. The paper reviews the contribution of technology to the advancement of the entire educational evaluation process from authoring and automatic generation and storing items through delivery methods (Internet-based, local server, removable media, mini-computer labs) and forms of task presentation made possible with technology to response capture, scoring and automated feedback and reporting.

 

The paper also reviews some special cases for which new technologies have enabled significant advances (e.g. assessments of students with special educational needs, assessment of collaborative skills and group achievement) and discusses the validity issues raised by the application of the new technolgies (e.g. factors influencing achievements when working with technological tools, the question of transferability of skills measured in a virtual environment).

 

Finally, the paper identifies areas where further research and development is needed (migration strategies, security, availability, accessibility, comparability, framework and instrument compliance) and lists themes for research projects feasible in the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project.

 

new skills, Skills, computer, eSkills
Directory

21st-Century Skills

28 Februari 2013

This paper outlines high-priority 21st-century skills, with examples of how they apply to real-world situations. It also delves into examples of assessment tasks and scoring rubrics that would provide evidence of students’ levels of mastery.

This paper synthesizes research on the role of standards and assessment in promoting learning, describes the nature of assessment systems that can support changes in practice, Illustrates the use of technology to transform assessment systems and learning, and proposes a model for assessing 21st century skills.
 
Large-scale assessments should be only part of any system to support student learning, Assessments at each level represent a significant opportunity to signal the important learning goals that are targeted by the broader system as well as to provide valuable, actionable data for policy and practice. Moreover, they can model next generation assessments that can support learning. To do so assessments should a) be aligned with the development of significant 21st century goals, b) be adaptable and responsive to new developments, c) be largely performance-based, d) add value for teaching and learning by providing information that can be acted on by students, teachers, and administrators, e) meet the general criteria for good assessments, (i.e. be fair, technically sound; valid for purpose, and part of a comprehensive and well-aligned system of assessments at all levels of education)
 
The model for assessments of 21st century skills, based on an analysis of curriculum and assessment frameworks for 21st century skills developed around the world, identifies ten important skills in four broad categories. The paper provides measureable descriptions of the skills, considering knowledge, skills, and attitudes, values and ethics (advanced as the KSAVE framework).
 
The paper concludes with a discussion of challenges to be addressed in developing an assessment system that supports learning using, for example, research-based models of skill development and assessments that make students’ thinking visible to establish their strengths and weaknesses and help shape future learning choices.
 
new skills, Skills, educational level
Directory

Methodological Issues

28 Februari 2013

This paper identifies and addresses problems inherent in assessing 21st-century skills, both in tests and in the classroom, focusing particularly on computer-enabled and large-scale assessment.

In this paper we have surveyed the methodological perspectives that we see as being important for assessing 21st century skills. Some of these issues are specific to 21st century skills, but the majority of them would apply more generally to the assessment of other psychological and educational variables.
 
The narrative of the paper initially follows the logic of assessment development, commencing with the definition of constructs to be assessed, the design of tasks that can be used to generate informative student responses, the coding/valuing of those responses, the delivery of the tasks and the gathering of the responses, and the modeling of the  responses with respect to the constructs. The paper continues with a survey of the strands of validity evidence that need to be established, and a discussion of specific issues that we see as being prominent in this context, such as: the need to resolve issues of generality versus contextual specificity, the relationships of classroom to large-scale assessments, and the possible roles for technological advances in assessing these skills. We also add a brief segment discussing some issues that arise with respect to specific types of variables involved in the assessment of 21st century skills.
 
We conclude the main text of the paper with a listing of particular challenges that we see as being prominent at this time. The paper has an annex that describes specific approaches to assessment design that we see as being useful in the development of new assessments.
new skills, Skills, methodology
Directory

Education Competencies

28 Februari 2013

The Education Competencies represent many of abilities required for successful job performance in education. The competencies were created in in 2006 and adapted for education.

Schools and districts around the country are using these tools in a variety of ways. If you are interested in learning more about the Education Competency Wheel please consider attending the Microsoft Institute.

 

The Education Competencies represent many of the attributes, behaviors, areas of knowledge, skills, and abilities required for successful job performance. Each Education Competency includes a definition, four levels of proficiency, sample interview questions, activities and resources to develop skills, and examples of overdoing the competency.

 

online resources, e-resources, Competence, Skills
Nieuws

Commission launches EU Skills Panorama to tackle skills mismatches

18 December 2012

The European Commission launched the EU Skills Panorama, a website presenting quantitative and qualitative information on short- and medium-term skills needs, skills supply and skills mismatches.

The Panorama, drawing on data and forecasts compiled at EU and Member State level, will highlight the fastest growing occupations as well as the top 'bottleneck' occupations with high numbers of unfilled vacancies. Currently, there are around 2 million job vacancies across the EU despite high levels of unemployment. The website contains detailed information sector by sector, profession by profession and country by country.

 

The Skills Panorama shows that the occupations with the most unfilled vacancies in the EU today are those of finance and sales professionals. Other shortages most frequently reported concern biologists, pharmacologists, medical doctors and related professionals, nurses, ICT computing professionals and engineers.

 

The website indicates that the strongest mismatch between skills and labour market needs exists in Lithuania, Bulgaria, Belgium, Hungary and Ireland, whereas in Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands the situation is much better.

 

The EU Skills Panorama will be regularly updated with the latest data.

new skills, Skills, eSkills, employability