TEACHING AND ASSESSING TRANSFERABLE/TRANSVERSAL COMPETENCES. THE CASE OF SOCCES

As OECD (2009) states: “Globalisation and modernisation are creating an increasingly diverse and interconnected world. To make sense of and function well in this world, individuals need, for example, to master changing technologies and to make sense of large amounts of available information. They also face collective challenges as societies – such as balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability, and prosperity with social equity. In these contexts, the competences that individuals need to meet their goals have become more complex, requiring more than the mastery of certain narrowly defined skills.” The critical importance of transferable competences in future employment is widely recognized. However, in most countries the educational practices are still under development and transversal competences are taught using different methods. Related subjects may have cross-curricular status, they may be integrated into existing curriculum subjects or they may be introduced as separately. The transversal competences, as well as other generic skills like creativity or problem solving, relate to more than one subject area and are more difficult to assess with traditional instruments. Therefore it is worth exploring what forms of assessment instruments are available for teachers to assess student progress in these fields. In most countries, a variety of subjects incorporate learning objectives or learning outcomes related to transversal competences. The aim of the European project SOCCES (“SOCial Competences, Entrepreneurship and Sense of Initiative – Development and Assessment Framework) is to develop and pilot a framework for the methodical assessment for two competences that are very important for working life - namely the Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship, and Social competences. The developed framework will be translated to a concrete assessment module that can be used in different educational environments. The module will include a collaborative, virtually enabled assignment and will be accompanied with virtually enabled teacher instructions. In this respect the paper has the objective, based on multiple project outcomes as well as on the evolution of existing educational and assessment practices, to outline and provide food for thought for defining and analysing innovative ways of teaching and assessing transferable/transversal competences in the context of higher education