Feedback- Workshop discussions

1. Feedback- Workshop discussions Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha 20 March 2013

2. 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

3. 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?

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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 internet- unseen texts and contexts

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. Question for further consideration • How can we ensure that the assessment of key competences does not undermine the integrity of the key competences?