Sharing+Concepts

= What do we understand by competence? =

Think about what the implications of teaching nurses to tidy up patients are. The technical aspects involved are straightforward, aren't they? However, the affective implications are quite another issue and far more complex.

Concepts, attitudes and procedures are necessary to build competence, but a competence is more than the sum of its parts, because it has to be applied in real circumstances, in all their complexity and uniqueness. Mastering a competence also depends on other competences. Cleaning a patient will be easier for someone whose social affective competences are high, just to put an example.

The European Commission (2007) defines competence as “a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the context. Key competences are those which all individuals need for personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment.”

Being competent implies the capacity to respond to specific and contextualized situations in an effective way, rearranging and adapting knowledge, skills and attitudes to circumstance. Competences confirm the attainment of contextualized learning and give a pragmatic perspective to learning objectives (Marchena, 2008). The objective of compulsory education in a competence based approach is to equip students for basic situations of life in modern knowledge societies.

Learning a language involves knowing functional grammar and vocabulary and register. It also requires a balanced progress of the four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing). Finally, to learn a language students must value cultural diversity and intercultural communication (European Commission, 2006). In order to make headway, Learning to learn is a vital key competence, and ICT use can prove a highly effective way to provide efficient learning and assessment designs.

To know more:

Coll, C. (2007) Las competencias en la Educación Escolar: algo más que una moda y mucho menos que un remedio. Innovación educativa. Aula de Innovación Educativa, 161, 34-39 Versión Electrónica [|http://aula.grao.com/revistas/aula/161-lengua-y-expresion-plastica--las-competencias-en-la-educacion-escolar/las-competencias-en-la-educacion-escolar-algo-mas-que-una-moda-y-mucho-menos-que-un-remedio]

European Commission. EACEA. 2007. European Reference Framework. Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. Belgium. []

**What do we understand by**  **Formative Assessment**  **?**

We need assessment to (Hadji, 1992): > == > = = The decisions we make on assessment are related to its two functions. The first one is a societal function. When assessment serves the need to validate and accredit what the learners know we refer to it as summative assessment. It normally takes place at the end of a learning unit. It is related to formal and official exams and can determine future career prospects (Sanmarti 2011, Mauri & Rochera, 2010). The second function of assessment is a pedagogical one. Assessment evidences are used to support and regulate learning, and in this sense, to confirm, modify or readjust decisions. This need is addressed by formative assessment. Thanks to formative assessment the learning process can be adapted to context and become more effective.
 * Gather information about students (either using writing tools or observing their performance)
 * Analyse that information
 * Make decisions about further actions

= = In order to help students in socialization and identity formation and teach their subjects, teachers have to build on models in which to base their assessment programmes. An assessment programme is defined as a set of assessment conditions that the teacher plans ahead and then develops together with her students during a school year (Remesal, 2006). The teacher’s guidance and the feedback provided in joint action can help pupils travel the road to success.

Assessment needs to fulfil certain characteristics and be continuous, regulated, distributed, mediated and authentic. Teachers also have to plan its different phases: prepare, gather evidence, correction, communicate results and recommend actions (Mauri & Rochera, 2010).

According to Black & Wiliam (2009), formative assessment serves 5 key strategies:


 * 1) 1. Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success
 * 2) 2. Engineering effective classroom discussions and other learning tasks that elicit evidence of student understanding;
 * 3) 3. Providing feedback that moves learners forward;
 * 4) 4. Activating students as instructional resources for one another; and
 * 5) 5. Activating students as the owners of their own learning

Coll, Mauri & Rochera (2012) argue that assessment can help students develop the learning to learn competence when assessment is real, continuous, self-regulated and collaborative. They see the phases in an assessment programme as opportunities that can be used to guide learners and develop their learning to learn competence. For that purpose, they suggest a set of indicators of accomplishment for students and a series of performance criteria for the teacher to be used in each assessment phase. In this way, teachers would be able to monitor the development of the learning to learn competence while assessing students.

In a competence approach, we cannot asses skills, competences and attitudes in the same way, even if in the end we are asking for a holistic approach to these three elements. Pere Marqués refers to that in his Curriculum Bimodal. This course is mainly focused on how to assess skills.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 5-31. Coll, C., Mauri, T. & Rochera, M. J. (2012). La práctica de evaluación como contexto para aprender a ser un aprendiz competente. Profesorado. Revista de curriculum y formación del profesorado, 16(1), 49-59. [] Accessed on 14-01-2013 Hadji, CH. (1992). L’evaluation des actions éducatives. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Mauri, T. & Rochera, M.J. (2010). La evaluación de los aprendizajes en la Educación Secundaria. En Coll, C. (Coord.) Desarrollo, aprendizaje y enseñanza en la educación secundaria (pp.155-167). Barcelona: Graó/Madrid: MEC. Sanmarti, N. (2007). Evaluar para aprender: 10 ideas clave. Barcelona: Graó.
 * To know more:**