2. Understand that the definitions of competences as well as national and international frameworks vary, but share common points; 

3. Become familiar with the basic key principles for teaching and assessing key competences, self-assess your current practice, and identify areas for improvement; 

4. Become familiar with how various countries across Europe have implemented a key competence approach in school education, particularly in Ireland, which is the case study used throughout the course

Project-based learning is a particularly well suited method for the development of pupils’ competences, as several key competences can be addressed simultaneously in a cross-curricular manner.

In summary, teaching key competences involves:
1) a greater emphasis on interactive learning environments, 
2) allowing students to work in teams on multidisciplinary topics, 
3) benefit from technology enhanced learning, and 4) have the mental, physical, social and emotional space to collaborate on solving problems. 

An important think to keep in mind is that Assessments need to provide ways for students to demonstrate that they can use knowledge, skills and attitudes to reason, solve problems and so on. New tools such as portfolios and e-assessments will be very useful for teachers.

 

 | Competence-based education in Europe today

 

 | Key Skills in Ireland

 

 | Project Maths in Ireland

 

 | Websites

 

 | Videos

 

 | Other relevant articles & publications

 

1. Understand the principles behind project-based learning, including inquiry-based and problem-based methods;

2. Become familiar with the preliminary checklist, basic steps and strategies recommended to design a project-based learning activity;

3. Understand how to set up a collaborative problem-solving task;

4. Understand the cognitive and social skills learners need to apply and teachers need to observe during a collaborative problem-solving task;

5. Become familiar with a range of project-based learning examples developed by teachers and students from different countries, targeting various competences and age levels;

6. Design a project-based learning plan to effectively develop one or more of learners’ key competences or transversal skills

It is often used to explore deep questions such as; Are all humans born free? Is democracy the ideal way to organise society? Inquiry-based learning relies on questioning–you may say “but so does the 

traditional approach to learning.” The difference is, however, that in the traditional classroom it is the teacher who asks questions to which answers can easily be found and which usually do not go beyond the immediately available information. In an inquiry-driven classroom, it is not only the teacher who asks open-ended questions, 

but also students themselves. Students are encouraged to question arguments, information, ideas, opinions and viewpoints, to go deeper and generate new questions, which will lead them to new knowledge.

In a PBL environment, the project should investigate "non-Googleable Driving Questions".  In other words questions that cannot be 

easily answered by just looking up Google, Bing, Wikipedia etc. Just like in preinternet days, students would look up an encyclopedia and slavishly copy the information to provide their answers.
Examples of Googleable questions are:

"How are airplanes wings constructed?"
On the other hand, non-Googleable questions would be:

" Answers to these questions can't be found on Google without "digging" deeply. 

The whole purpose of PBL is to encourage pupils to research and to find answers and solutions, to help them develop higher-order thinking skills: analyse the information they find, interpret it and compare their findings, synthesis the ideas, evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, peer and self-assess it, find solutions and create a new product.

The problem-based learning method, which is more practical. Students are given a real life problem to investigate, which can be 

described as an authentic problem and have to come up with possible solutions. It may be widely applied to all kinds of real life problems. The solutions can then be discussed and tested to see which will work best in a given situation, for example. How to provide the best care for elderly people in their own homes, How to improve 

access to public buildings. Both of these approaches focus on developing problem-solving, critical thinking and information processing skills. They also work best when students have to work in small teams or groups. The two methods are closely related 

to each other and often overlap. In this approach, there are not n

ecessarily right or wrong answers. Each solution may have merits and demerits and the students have to analyse and judge.

A preliminary checklist:

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

The primary distinction between problem-solving by an individual and collaborative problem-solving is its social nature-the need for communication, exchange of ideas, shared identification of the problem and its elements, and negotiated agreement on connections between problem elements and relationships between actions and their effects. Collaborative problem-solving makes each of these steps observable, as they must be shared with a partner or other members of a group if a solution is to be 

successfully identified. These steps can be describe d as follows:

1.A problem state must be jointly recognised, and collaborators must identify and agree on which elements of the problem each can control or monitor. 

2. A representation of the problem must be shared. 

3. Collaborators need to agree on a plan of action, including management of resources. 

4. Plans must be executed, which may require a coordinated effort by collaborators acting together or in sequence. 

5.Progress towards a solution must be monitored, different options evaluated, plans reformulated if necessary, and collaborators must decide on how to proceed in the face of positive or negative feedback. 

Ways of thinking were conceptualised to include creativity and innovation, critical thinking, problem-solving, and learning to learn and the development of metacognition. 

Ways of working was conceptualised to include communication, collaboration and teamwork; 

Tools for working involved information and ICT literacy; 

Living in the world involved changing emphases on local and global citiz

enship, aspects of life and career development, and personal and social responsibility. 

These were all grouped under the acronym KSAVE: knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and ethics. It also meant that the Ways of learning

and ways of teaching need to be

taken into account in the development of the assessment strategies that focus on these skills

The primary distinction between problem-solving by an individual and collaborative problem-solving is its social nature-the need for communication, exchange of ideas, shared identification of the problem and its elements, and negotiated agreement on connections between problem elements and relationships between actions and their effects. Collaborative problem-solving makes each of these steps observable, as they must be shared with a partner or other members of a group if a solution is to be 

successfully identified. These steps can be describe d as follows:

1.A problem state must be jointly recognised, and collaborators must identify and agree on which elements of the problem each can control or monitor. 

2. A representation of the problem must be shared. 

3. Collaborators need to agree on a plan of action, including management of resources. 

4. Plans must be executed, which may require a coordinated effort by collaborators acting together or in sequence. 

5.Progress towards a solution must be monitored, different options evaluated, plans reformulated if necessary, and collaborators must decide on how to proceed in the face of positive or negative feedback. 

STEPS:
1.The first step is where each of the individuals within the collaborative team explores the problem space and identifies the e

lements 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...

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

. 

Ways of thinking were conceptualised to include creativity and innovation, critical thinking, problem-solving, and learning to learn and the development of metacognition. 

Ways of working was conceptualised to include communication, collaboration and teamwork; 

Tools for working involved information and ICT literacy; 

Living in the world involved changing emphases on local and global citizenship, aspects of life and career development, and personal and social responsibility. 

These were all grouped under the acronym KSAVE: knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and ethics. It also meant that the Ways of learning and ways of teaching need to be taken into account in the development of the assessment strategies that focus on these skills

Social skills: working together, the capacity and skills that enable students to work collaboratively and to share their knowledge, expertise and suggestions of strategy.

Cognitive skills that enable them to understand the problem and analyse its tasks and specific requirements, 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

 

 | Examples of prize-winning European eTwinning projects

 

 | Collaborative learning

 

 | Transversal key competences for lifelong learning: training teachers in competence based education – TRANSIt Training Framework

 

 | Project Maths - Ireland

2. Understand that the assessment of key competences needs to measure students’ reasoning processes, understanding of interconnections, and problem-solving skills;

3. Become familiar with a range of innovative tools and approaches, both ‘low-tech’ and ‘high-tech’, which are effective at measuring students’ reasoning processes and ability to solve complex problems;

4. Understand the importance of classroom-based formative assessments for assessing key competences;

5. Become familiar with the evidence required for assessing collaborative problem-solving, and how teachers can use rubrics and developmental progressions to interpret their observations of learners’ skills and behaviour.

 

 | The Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills Project

 

 | Competence-based assessment of Mathematics in Ireland