180 Teachers of all subjects and levels, educational professionals, policy makers attended the Conference entitled: “European/national initiatives to foster competency-based teaching and learning Conference”, hosted by TRANSIt and Open Discovery Space European initiatives. The event took place at Ellinogermaniki Agogi Premises, on Friday October 31st 2014.
The key competence acquisition (KCA) by every young person is one of the long term objectives of the updated strategic framework for European cooperation. Most of the EU Member States are formulating and at least beginning to implement policies that move their school systems from being predominantly input led and subject-oriented towards curricula which include competences, cross-curricular activities, active and individual learning, as well as a focus on learning outcomes. Yet, these developments do not necessarily result in significant, widespread changes in practice – that is, in how schools actually organise and provide learning experiences for pupils. The difficulty is in all cases translating these policies into practice. TRANSIt is a European project that aims to contribute to the enhancement of transversal key competences of students through building teachers capacity for competence oriented education.
In parallel, the use of online content and the relevant innovative teaching techniques are reshaping the modern school. The “European/national initiatives to foster competency-based teaching and learning” Conference aimed at building the necessary structures and networks that will facilitate competence development (of students and teachers) embracing e-learning by the teaching community.
Talks on a range of relevant issues, such as European/national E-Learning Policies & initiatives to foster competency-based teaching and learning, the role of e-learning in the Opening up Education agenda, the development of multilingual educational social media and what ODS can offer to a school, by selected speakers involving representatives from the Greek Ministry of Education, and the academic field were followed by presentations of innovative teaching practices with an aim to foster key competence acquisition, involving e-learning sources, as well as 5 parallel two-hour workshops on:
· Designing and Evaluating Educational Activities fostering Competences (using electronic resources and being member of the dedicated ODS community)
· Inquiry-Based Learning to foster students’ transversal key competences and digital badges
· Open Badges
· Fostering the acquisition of key competences with project-based & inquiry based learning activities
· Project based learning/ cross-curricular projects
The full programme can be accessed here. More information is available here.
