What is ATS2020

Preparing students for living and working in the 21st century requires education systems to give citizens core knowledge along with a set of key competences.  The rapid growth of digital tools use by the youth challenges national ministries of education.  Student exposure in web 2.0 tools, devices, and environments brings new affordances, challenges, opportunities, and demands new skills for teaching and assessment of and for learning. Education must reform to accommodate, facilitate and develop 21st century learning, teaching, assessment and skills[1].  Education stakeholders agree on this “Opening up”; but many are at a loss for implementation and assessment, especially within national curricula.

The Assessment of Transversal Skills 2020 (ATS2020) project proposes a comprehensive learning model to enhance student transversal, 21st century indispensable, skills, within the diverse EU national curricula, including provision of teachers with modern approaches and innovative tools for the assessment of these skills.

The ATS2020 partnership extends and fleshes-up existing models combining process and product: a web of learning activities leading to learning outcomes; technological and scaffolding tools evaluated, extended and redesigned. Evidence of learning has been gathered using an ePortfolio three-level developmental process (repository, workspace and showcase)[2] with an embedded continuous reflection cycle of “my learning”[3]. Teachers and students at a scale sufficiently large and diverse for valid conclusions have been actively involved; they collaborate and make evidence-based decisions while (re)designing instruction and learning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATS2020 explores the impact of the intervention through valid and reliable mixed-method evaluation, collecting data from 10 countries, in a range of classrooms from more than 200 schools, involving more than 800 teachers and 10,000 learners. Transferability and scalability across Europe are the main issues of the experimentation results analysis.

Through extensive dissemination activities, the project contributes to the growing discussion around the development and assessment of transversal skills within upper primary and lower second level education. This evidence aims to help Ministries of Education and the European Commission to formulate informed policies and implementation strategies for the development and assessment of transversal competences across Europe.  

In summary, the main outcomes of the project are:

1. A validated model for student learning and transversal skills assessment based on:

• Age-suitable transversal competences;
• National curricula;
• Student-centered approaches for learning;
• Scaffolding tools for innovative instruction and assessment;

• Digital Environments and tools to tap technology affordances (e.g. ePortfolio, learning analytics, social networks, assessment rubrics).

2. Over 1,000 teachers experienced in implementing the model.
3. CPD programme ready for deployment beyond the pilot schools.
4. Sound impact evaluation and subsequent policy recommendations at the National and EU levels.
5. Scalability models for policy makers at regional, national and EU levels.

 

Experimentation results can be found under ATS2020 deliverables and Outputs