Teacher Assessing Key Competences in School: authentic task based evaluation methodology

With the Recommendation 18 december 2006 European Union has identified 8 Key Competences for lifelong learning: a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for self realization and delf development, inclusion, activie citizenship and employability. Several countries have embedded the Key Competences framework in the school reforms, starting a change of paradigm that integrates the competences with the disciplinary knowledge, toward a school competence based. Analysing how the Key Competences are implemented in the school field, three remarks emerge: 1. despite still no European country has completed a full transition to education competence based, have been launched several initiatives and experiments in the direction of the visibility and recognition of Key Competences; 2. the construction of a school based on Key Competences requires the adoption of new approaches, policies and tools to plan paths, assess and certify the competences; 3. it is necessary that teachers use methodologies and tools for an authentic assessment of Key Competences for both formative and summative purposes. Now the main challenge is the assessment of Key Competences. TASK project aim was to develop a methodology to support teachers in the assessment of Key Competences, in order to certificate them with national formats, starting from the exploitation and adaptation of the VINTAGE model. Designed, tested and validated in a Grundtvig project of the Lifelong Learning Programme (adult education field), the VINTAGE model is characterized as an authentic, self-reflective, proactive and anchored to the context assessment methodology; the project has developed an online tool based on the model that allows the user to self-evaluate his Key Competences. The TASK methodology is an integration of a framework for the self-assessment of Key Competences in the lower/upper secondary school, a web application for the self-assessment, a set of authentic tasks and the guidelines for teachers aimed to support them in the application of the procedure. The project had a duration of 24 months and has involved 340 teachers with 776 students of lower and upper secondary schools from 15 countries in the two experimentations, 327 teachers and experts from 124 schools in the Multiplier Events, and 122 teachers in other local seminars. It has produced the following activities:A Research about rules, practices, methodologies and tools for the assessment of Key Competences in partner countries;The TASK framework, that is the methodological frame for the assessment of Key Competences in school contexts;the TASK Framework experimentation, to test the Framework involving lower and upper secondary school teachers, to verify its consistence, effectiveness, usability and coherence with the certification tools and formats;The TASK web application, that supplies a logical interactive path for the self-assessment of the Key Competences in the school context, supported by a web interface; The TASK web application experimentation;The TASK Guideline, a support to the teachers for the adoption of the TASK methodology. TASK project has also carried out dissemination activities: Multipliers Events with teachers, decision-makers, key actors, stakeholders, Seminars, production of information material.TASK project has obtained the following results:- a repertoire of the assessment approaches and the certification procedures/models in the partners' countries, useful to define common criteria and rules to implement TASK methodology;- the diffusion in schools of a methodology not exclusively limited to the assessment practice, but also involving the teaching and learning approaches: an approach for the self-assessment of Key Competences; an instrument for the assessment of Key Competences for their certification; a learning process, as a procedural and formative assessment approach; a social and collaborative approach. - the development of a network of key actors that allowed to generate a robust impact, involving more stakeholders than the number expected in the project proposal.