That is being competent means being able to effectively apply a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes to successfully react to a situation or solve a problem inthe real world. 

At the beginning ‘competence’ was used in the professional context in France in the 1970s to refer to what employees needed beyond qualifications to act effectively in a range of work situations. 

In the 1980s, competence-based approaches started to be developed in vocational education and training in various countries. 

Since then, the competence-based learning has now also been extended to general school education, which is the focus of our course. 

Transversal competences such as collaborative problem-solving are particularly important today. The European Framework for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning defines the importance of ‘learning to learn’ competence.

because life is non-routine, problem-based and technology rich.
That's why teaching, learning and assessment should be grounded in a competence-based approach, moving away from solely content-led approaches, and focusing more on helping learners develop a range of competences to cope in our complex world. 

Education is intended to promote: learners’ personal growth, citizenship and preparation for the world of work.

Moreover other more transversal and higher order skills needed for this in today’s society, such as collaborative problem-solving are increasingly valuable for citizens to be able to effectively take part in life today, whether personally, socially or professionally.

The need to improve the quality and relevance of the competences learners acquire before leaving formal education has been widely recognized, particularly in view of Europe’s current high youth unemployment. 

Knowledge and basic skills are necessary but no longer sufficient to meet the complex requirements of today’s social demands in an increasingly competitive global economy. 

In a digital world functional skills-based professions are in decline, competence oriented education has particular relevance. 

New technologies are constantly changing the way we learn, work, live and function in a digital and knowledge-based society. 

So the need to develop learners’ competences seems pretty clear. 

Countries have therefore developed their own national definitions and competence frameworks, including subject-based as well as transversal competences. 

The key competences have increasingly gained importance becoming prominent in education systems worldwide foto social and economic motivations, as well as developments in educational research.
In addition many international competence frameworks have been developed over the past 20 years. 

These include

·         the European Union’s Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning,

·         the UNESCO framework, 

·         the OECD DESECO framework, 

·         Partnerships 21 framework, 

·         and the ATC21S framework. 

All these frameworks share common points and have been developed in consultation with experts and stakeholders globally.
In the course,  European Union framework and the ATC21S framework has been mainly used as reference points. 

- Communication in the mother tongue 

All 8 key competences are considered equally important, because each of them contributes to the personal fulfilment and development of all individuals.
However, there is one particular competence which will be considered extremely important by all of you, and that is the ‘learning to learn’ competence, as it is the foundation of all learning.
Learning to learn is defined as the ability to pursue and persist in learning,  to organise one's own learning, including through effective management of time and information, both individually and in groups. 

Many of the competences overlap and interlock, and they are all interdependent, with the following transversal skills playing an important role in each of them:

critical thinking, creativity, initiative, problem solving, risk assessment, decision taking and the constructive management of feelings.
Essential knowledge:  each one has to understand preferred learning strategies, and the strengths and weaknesses of his/her skills and qualifications. 

Essential skills:  acquisition of the fundamental basic skills such as literacy, numeracy and ICT skills that are necessary for further learning. 

Building on these skills, an individual should be able to access, gain, process and assimilate new knowledge and skills. 

Learners should be able to organise their own learning, evaluate their own work, and seek advice, information and support when appropriate.  

Essential attitudes: motivation confidence handle obstacles and change. 

Now bear in mind the following 7 steps then you are well on your way…
Step 1. Involve your students from the very beginning. Start with a guided exploration of some topics you have in mind as a whole class; but also be prepared to change if better ideas are emerging from the class. It is important to establish certain ground rules regarding behavior with them in advance.   
Step 2.  Having defined the topic, in discussion with the class break it down into different tasks. Discuss which technologies to use and how they will be integrated  
Step 3. Plan well, set goals, define outcomes. Above all be concrete, students need goals to work towards and responsibility of tasks in order to achieve them 
Step 4. Proceed to put pupils into small groups with responsibilities for a particular task.  Encourage pupils to ask personally relevant and socially significant questions regarding the topics chosen. Work to the strengths of each pupil. 
Step 5. Create a tangible artifact that addresses the issue, answers questions, and makes learning visible and accountable.  
Step 6. Arrive at a conclusion...take a stand...take action. 
Step 7. Document, justify, and share conclusion with larger audience. (parents, school etc)  Build in presentation of the outcomes or artifact to different audiences as a key part of the project. Presentation of ideas to others consolidates the learning for the students. 

In the ATC21S study, problem-solving was seen as a series of steps leading towards hypothesis testing and collaborative testing of ideas:
1. The first step is where each of the individuals within the collaborative team explores the problem space and identifies the elements and aspects of it. They might record their observations individually at this stage.
2. The next step involves students collecting and sharing information about problem elements and how they link together. In this process the students are identifying and collating the total amount of information about the problem by sharing information about observations and collaborating and defining the problem space.
3. Discussion then centres on whether there are patterns and links between elements of the problem, both within and across the areas of observation available to each of the participants.
4. Once the connections are identified, the discussion and collaboration begin to formulate rules or contingencies associated with actions and observations.                          These need to be shared across the participants’ observation space. The discussion follows the “if… then” paradigm
5. . By a process of observation and collecting data about the link between actions and observations, the collaborators then begin to formulate rules or contingencies. These lead to generalisations so that the collaborators can conclude that every time a particular action takes place a particular consequence is observed. At this point they move from inductive to deductive reasoning in the hierarchy of problem solving skills.
6. At the highest ATC21S level of performance, students reflect on the kind of conclusions that are drawn from the information about exceptions to the generalisations. At this point the students are testing hypotheses by challenging generalisations. They address the issue with such expressions as "what if…"  

The importance of collaborative problem-solving in the workplace is increasing as societies and workplaces become increasingly knowledge dependent.
Collaborative problem solving requires that the people combine their resources and their strategies in order to reach a common goal, and that collaboration is essential because the task is too complex for a person to work through it alone.
Different people possess different information; different expertise and experience that they can bring to the problem space in order to jointly share the knowledge, experience and strategies in order to jointly solve a particular problem.
Combining resources is important and the knowledge and the kinds of skills that each person possesses too.
Collaborative problem-solving has these two main components. 

the collaborative, sharing or social aspects
the knowledge, strategic, problem-solving or cognitive aspects.

Collaborative problem solving is therefore defined as a joint activity where two or more people work together to contribute knowledge, skills, materials and procedures and move through a series of cognitive states that involve collection and analysis of information and the formulation of hypotheses that they jointly set out to test.  .  This take to a different approach to assessment.
Traditionally collaborative teams assessment tasks, problem based learning projects, or investigations in the classroom, the assessment focuses on the outcome of the team effort.
In  collaborative problem-solving we have to identify individual skill development and their contribution to the overall team result.

The second thing that makes it different is that it is technology-based. Just reviewing a couple of simple examples of two people working their way through a particular collaborative problem solution it becomes evident that an observer gets lost in the complex interactions and activities of the participants.  

 
The medium of delivery of the task or project can be face-to-face or through technology.
Technology implies a range of ways in which the students can collaborate. This can be across different countries, classrooms and it does not matter if there physically separated by times, location, page, opportunity or subject knowledge. What is required is that the students can simultaneously access the tasks and interact with one another via the Internet to explore potential procedures and strategies that would help them solve a complex problem. The essential aspect of the collaborative problem-solving task or a collaborative problem based learning project is that each participant in the group possesses or controls unique knowledge, expertise, experience, materials or objects that are essential to the completion of the task, the project or the problem solution. Without every individual contributing their specific resource project cannot be completed; problem cannot be solved; the task cannot be done. Collaborative problem-solving demands that every participant contributes to the work of the group and is able to understand and explain to their collaborators their role and the importance of their contribution to the solution of the task. 
Collaborative problem-solving relies upon at least two areas of skill. The students working together must have the capacity and skills that enable them to work collaboratively and to share their knowledge, expertise and suggestions of strategy. They must also have the cognitive skills that enable them to understand the problem and analyse its tasks and specific requirements.
 In addition the student will need to have the cognitive skills that will enable them to assemble information; build their expertise and understanding of the problem; link their shared understandings to particular procedures that will enable them to make progress in reaching the problem solution and to be able to identify patterns and strategies that can help understand connections and contingencies that will eventually enable them to make generalizable suggestions to each other about problem solution and to test those generalisations in the form of hypothesis testing.