Grundtvig Project VINTAGE
Project Number: 527349‐LLP‐1‐2012‐1‐IT‐GRUNDTVIG‐GMP Agreement Number: 2012‐4192/001‐001
What are key competences for lifelong learning and how they can be assessed
Jaap van Lakerveld Joost de Zoete Ingrid Gussen The European parliament, the European Commission and the Council of Europe agree on the importance of eight key competences for Life Long Learning. The European Framework for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning identifies and defines eight key competences necessary for personal fulfillment, active citizenship, social inclusion and employability in a knowledge society. This paper is an introduction to the subject of the assessment of key competences and provides a summary of the early reflections generated by the study developed within the Project Vintage, aimed at developing a tool for self‐assessment of key competences in adult education.
1. Communication in the mother tongue 2. Communication in foreign languages 3. Mathematical competences and basic competences in science and technology 4. Digital competence 5. Learning to learn 6. Social and civic competence 7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship 8. Cultural awareness and expression
Competence Rapid societal changes, shifting positions of nations and continents in international competition, demographic changes, technological changes are just a few of the developments that led the European Commission and other policy making bodies to emphasize the necessity of life long learning of professionals in a wide variety of fields of work. The European Framework for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning identifies and defines eight key competences necessary for personal fulfillment, active citizenship, social inclusion and employability in a knowledge society: 1. Communication in the mother tongue; 2. Communication in foreign languages; 3. Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology; 4. Digital competence; 5. Learning to learn; 6. Social and civic competences; 7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship; 8. Cultural awareness and expression. Competences consist of a combination of skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours required for effective performance of a real‐world task or activity. A competence is defined as the holistic synthesis of these components. At another level a competence again may be divided in three components or aspects. It is the ability of a person to show: 1. a particular behaviour in; 2. a particular context and with; 3. a particular quality. This is the formal way of describing competences. In more down to earth language this implies that what matters is not only what we know about things, but more important is what we are able to do with this knowledge, and whether we are able to go on developing our abilities. Does education make learners knowledgeable, or does it make them competent, that is the question.
The components of competence
The ellipse in the middle of the scheme includes the actual performance that shows the level of control over a particular competence. The components in the left triangle (composing someone’s potential) allow a person to show the intended behaviour in the right triangle. There the pupil/ student demonstrates his/her acquired competence. (Lakerveld, J.A van, Gussen I, 2011)
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The first three of the competences are domain specific, while the other five are referred to as transversal which implies that they pervade the other competence areas. We will outline some trends in the ways learning processes have been conceptualised throughout the last decades. The setting in which people work, or the setting they perceive as their work environment, has profoundly changed. These changes have their impact on day to day practice of workers and learners as well as the practices of educators. The trends in the way in which learning processes were perceived and approached throughout the last decades indicate this evolution.
Views on acquiring competences
rewards or reinforcements were over. The personal computer was introduced and became fashionable and invaded in all our offices in schools and universities.
Man and his smartest inventions Throughout time man often has compared himself with his own smartest inventions (Vroon and Draaisma, 1985), be it a steam engine, a radio, or a computer. Twenty‐five years ago, in their book about
The late seventies, early eighties Psychologist started to think about the human mind as a personal computer, as a system that stores information, processes information, that retrieves information and that function better when the information stored is well organised and structured.
metaphors, Vroon and Draaisma indicated that ‘in recent times’ the human mind is often compared with computers. However computers show an evolution and as a consequence so did our perception of our own mind and maybe so did our mind itself. The early seventies In the early seventies behaviourism was beginning to loose its position (Lecas, 2006). The time of mechanical metaphors, simple ideas of mechanical
The cognitive revolution took place. Cognitivism of course existed before, but now this approach became the dominant approach. Now that learning was assumed to be basically an information processing process, people began to use metaphorical concepts such a long term memory, short term memory. The human being and his
minds, memory drums, programmed instruction made place for a much more cognitively oriented approach. The days of programmed instruction, in which learning was perceived as synonymous to being trained, and a matter of conditioning involving
metaphor approached each other. In a way one could argue that a person is not only compared to an information processing system; people actually are information processing systems (Lindsay and Norman, 1977).
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The late eighties Soon it appeared that computers were not just information processing systems; they could also be much more creative than people had anticipated. Artificial intelligence no longer was just science fiction; it started to become more and more a reality, so psychologist realised that the human brain might be far more constructive than they had assumed thus far. The cognitive approach was evolving into constructivism in those days. In the late eighties the cognitive view shifted towards a more constructivist one (Valcke, 2007). Knowledge in that approach is not just absorbed and stored; knowledge is a personal competence that is self constructed. It is an integrated entity of knowledge, skills and attitudes, that allows the individual to act in a situation. Constructivism was a theory developed long ago, but the significant thing here is that it suddenly gained support in this era. The early nineties The computers developed rapidly and the Internet was introduced in organisations and homes. Suddenly computers appeared to be more than just processors or constructors; they appeared to be social interactive tools. Researchers, authors, journalists discovered that email allowed them to work closely together with colleagues all over the globe in a constructive way. It proved once more and more convincingly that leaning was more that individual construction of knowledge. Knowledge construction to a high extent appeared to be a social activity, in which individual and collective progress go hand in hand (Palinscar, 1998). That is when constructivism turned into social constructivism. Again, of course Vygotsky had developed these ideas long ago, but now they became commonly accepted. The late nineties In the early nineties the Internet was still very much limited to storing, searching and downloading information (Google) and to electronic mail. The attention of psychologists was drawn into two directions. One was inspired by the internal structures of computers and networks. That is what led to theories of connectionism in which the actual brain structures of neural connections became the object of studies.
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Main EU documentes on Key Competences Recommendation 2006/962/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning [Official Journal L 394 of 30.12.2006] European Commission (2007). Key Competences for lifelong learning – European Reference Framework. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education _culture/publ/pdf/ll‐ learning/keycomp_en.pdf European Commission (2010). Key Competences for Life Long Learning, European Reference Framework. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education _culture/publ/pdf/ll‐ learning/keycomp_en.pdf
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Other psychologists were focusing on the external links and connections and turned to connectivism in which learning was conceptualized as a matter of connecting to the right people as sources and resources of learning. Connectivism emphasizes the necessity of sharing knowledge and finding the right sources and persons to connect with (Siemens 2005). Connectionism is very much focusing on the neuronal functioning of the brain, while connectivism is paying more attention to communication and information technology and the potential these have for human learning. The turn of the millennium By the time we reached the turn of the millennium paradigms had been changed and challenged so often our that a kind of post modern eclecticism set in. Like the computer, which had turned into a multitasking multi media tool, the human brain was believed to be of a similar multi leveled structure with many underlying mechanisms and a variety of theories to explain them. The second decade of the millennium Today another profound development shows its impact on the way we work with computers and on how we think about learning. For a long time computers were perceived as sources of information, or channels through which sources could be found. Increasingly, however, computers today are used to upload information. Wikipedia is a good example of this trend. A person puts information on the web, other persons add theirs, again other person upgrade the information or enrich it with their views or inputs and when the first person types the same thing into Google a next time he or she sees clearly that the knowledge has grown without his or her involvement in the mean time. In a way you might argue that learning takes place at a level beyond the individual. Knowledge was produced, or created. The seat of that knowledge may not primarily be the human brain. Learning has turned into knowledge production and creation. Has man been taken over
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by his smartest invention? For now the balance is that we see that learning itself evolves in such a way that without being involved in learning ourselves all the time we will loose touch with developments in various fields and with learning itself. As for the content of our work and of our profession that was always a well known fact. One had to attend refresher courses, or read books, but this short history of learning shows that learning itself is in such a permanent evolution that it requires a permanent re‐orientation. It is our conviction that teacher educators, who’s core business it is to think about learning, to promote learning and to optimize learning have a special responsibility in these matters.
Learning 3.0 The learning environment as provided by computers more and more proves to be responsive to the personal individual web history of the user of the web. This implies that increasingly the users will each be confronted with a learning environment of their own that differs from that of others. This implies that the contextual component of competence becomes more and more important to be considered. Society moves in a direction in which we all operate in a rich but personally focused work‐learning environment. For matters of teaching and learning this implies that learning increasingly has to become a mutual process rather than a one or two way process. This again requires even more complicated (sub)competences in each of the key competence areas identified.
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Why competences
marginalized group. The may become the new disadvantaged.
Growing pace of knowledge production Knowledge production shows an ever increasing pace. The number of publications and the technological progress made show a pace that no longer allows for the traditional approaches. What pupils and students learn while at school already partially is out of date when they complete their studies. Of course there will always be a need for basic knowledge and skills, but the debate about what that includes will prove to be continuous. Increasingly there will be an additional competence needed in self regulated learning. The European Union has repeatedly stressed the role of education and training for the long term competitiveness of the European Union (European Commission, 2007a). Each student will have to be prepared for a life in which change is the rule and stability the exception. Teachers will have to facilitate these processes of learning how to learn and how to engage in life long learning.
Mobility and internationalization New member states joined the European Union and more are still to come. Mobility can assist in ensuring that EU citizens ‘work to live’ and improve their quality of life, as well as assist in strengthening social cohesion within Europe and assuring the sustainable development of European society in general (Tom Vandenbrande, 2006). Increased mobility enriches the cultural scenery in each of the member states, but it also shows transition problems. New challenges of getting acquainted with each others educational systems and levels, new challenges of division of work and new challenges of other ways of cross cultural communication and cooperation arise. Europe solved many of such problems in the past and probably will do it again, but it takes efforts and time. Teachers will have to play an important role in this process of mutual adaptation.
Cultural issues
New technologies and the risk of computer illiteracy The developments show their own dynamics in which some people take part and others don’t. During the past decade, Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have become available, i.e. accessible and affordable, for the general public. However, a gap remains between users and non‐ users or between “haves” and “have‐nots” (Eurostat, 2005). In the new century the division of knowledge seems to become the core issue. In order to take part in modern life people will have to be competent in the multiple ways of communication and information sharing as made available through new media. Those that loose touch with modern technology may get disconnected and at risk of deteriorating into a
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With the ongoing unification of Europe, citizens at the same time often feel the need to emphasise their more local or regional identity. The more centralization, the more this need appears to arise. The position of Europe in the world brings with it that people from elsewhere around the globe seek their future in Europe. Though policies are not always very welcoming still quite a few people enter the union each year. They will also have to integrate or find their place in the European “salad bowl” as it is referred to (to distinguish it from the American melting pot). Again education and teachers within it will play a major part in this process of cultural integration and co‐existence.
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New position in the global economy Europe develops a more and more shared identity. With the introduction of the Euro Europe has gained a stronger economical position in the world. Other economical nuclei begin to develop as well and the competition will increase as a consequence. The European Commission, as a consequence, sets as its target to turn Europe into one of the most knowledge productive societies. This implies a big challenge to society in general and education in particular. Teachers will be vital payers in these matters. Health hazards The quality of food has risen but the quality of it consumption has not. Many countries are having problems related to that. Over consumption, too much junk food and too many sweets not to mention the many beverages cause over weight and related other problems. The use of drugs and alcohol is still not under control. So many measures are being taken to reduce the health hazards of modern life styles. As for many problems again the politicians often turn to educators. Schools and teachers take a responsibility in reducing the problems. Moral issues The position of churches declined. The traditional social structures within society tend to alter. After a long period of individualization the present generation shows a more diverse image of what is considered morally adequate. The role of families in moral development and education seems to decrease. Increasingly parents expect schools to contribute to the development of values, norms and attitudes. Schools, though often reluctantly, see themselves forced to do something. Safe schools,
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social competence projects, increasing co‐operation with youth organizations are only a few of the examples that might be given to support this trend. Again it is teachers who are expected to play their part. Environmental issues Worldwide we see environmental issues: global warming, pollution, exhaustion of natural resources to name a few. Europe has its own challenges in these matters. Reduction of the use of energy, clean energy sources and preservation of our natural environment play a major part in the present political and other debates. Schools prepare student for a future that will have to be sustainable. Society and schools within it are facing huge challenges. The issues mentioned require strategies to find proper answers to guarantee a prosperous, healthy and peaceful future for Europe. The European Commission promotes the idea that education, schools and teachers may play a major part in meeting the challenges the world sets to Europe, its member states and most important, its citizens. So far we focused on the definition of competences and the background of competence as such. We did not focus on the choice of the eight competences mentioned as such.
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Assessing competence The debate about the choice of competences often reveals misunderstandings about them. It is important here to realize that the competences are conceived as competences for lifelong learning. So for instance if we focus on the KC of entrepreneurship that does not mean that people ought to start firms, farms of factories, no. it implies that people in order to be successful lifelong learners nee a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. So in assessing this competence the focus will have to be on entrepreneurial learning, rather than on starting enterprises. This applies to all of the distinguished competences. Assessing competences is a process of identifying the performance of a person in a particular situation and evaluate the quality of the performance. In traditional educational settings assessment was assumed to consist only of identifying the knowledge, skills and attitudes that were supposed to be included in a person’s potential. The focus in such assessment approaches is on a person’s potential rather than one person’s actual performance. Nowadays views on learning with the focus on knowledge productivity, co‐ creation, social constructivism, connectivism etc. do assume that the knowledge is not a body of knowledge known to some expert people and now only to be transmitted to others; it rather is based on the idea that in
mutual interaction all learners involved bring themselves further in their itineraries towards extended personal competence. Given this shift in views on competence, and on competence acquisition the challenge is to assess the actual behaviour a person demonstrates in a real(istic) context. Referring to the double triangle model this means that the assessment needs to be focusing on the right triangle rather than on the left. Nonetheless items may be included referring to the elements included in the left triangle, since these elements may be considered a valuable treasure of knowledge skills and attitudes that may clarify or explain why a level of performance/competence is present, or not present yet. Dochy 2002 mentions a number of conditions to be fulfilled in a competence oriented assessment:: 1. The construction of knowledge is a must, not reproduction. 2. The goal of the assessment is basic knowledge as well as applying knowledge and skills. 3. Authentic or lifelike situations should be used, such as cases or problems. The following characteristics are an ambition in assessment: 4. students should be involved actively in the design and performance of assessments. 5. The assessments are being integrated in the learning and instruction process (Dochy 2002:35). Assessment types: Examination, essay, seminar, project, individual, group, oral presentation, report/review, practical/field file, it file, field course file, portfolio, proposal, diary, report (Brown & Knight in Dochy 2009:37). Self assessment, peer‐assessment, co‐ assessment, portfolio‐assessment, overall‐ assessment, assessment centre, presentation, memorandum report, performance assessment, simulation, journalism, reflective journal, knowledge test (Dochy 2002:39).
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Functions of assessing competences
of acquiring competences. In learning situations, however we often come across collective learning situation in which the ultimate goal is to raise the
Assessments may serve various purposes. This does not imply that each purpose requires a different tool; it does however seem to imply that a same or similar tool would need different guidelines/manuals when used for different purposes. This has to be taken into account while designing the tool. Now first we will clarify the concept of assessment functions/purposes. Diagnostic An assessment may be used to help a person acquire a view on his/ her own abilities at a particular moment in time. A diagnostic assessment is meant to provide feedback to a question as: What kind of competence profile do I have?; what kind of person am I ? etc. Orientation An other kind of assessment function is focusing on providing the person with a clear image of what a competence includes or involves. By doing an assessment the learner gets an insight in the feature of the competences included in the assessment. It is like doing the test in order to know what the test is about rather than for being tested. Formative/learning oriented Once engaged in a learning process a learner may wish to get feedback on how much progress he or she makes and how this progress may be optimized. The basic need for information is based on the curiosity on how well one is doing, how far one has come and how the learning process may best be continued. Collective learning So far we consider learning as an individual process
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level of collective performance (examples are sports, dancing, drama, team work, etc.) Assessments on competences with such a collective ambition will need to include ways of identifying the collective performance. Summative assessment Once a learning process is coming to a particular level considered to be the end, or the completion of the process, the assessment needs focus on the question, did I reach my goals? Do I meet the standards? In such cases we speak of summative assessment focusing on the identification of the eventual level of performance; the final judgment. Selective assessment Again an other purpose of assessing competence may be for purposes of selection. In such assessment the basic challenge is to rank the levels of performance to identify who are the best, or better than others. Predictive assessment Having gone through a learning process it may be interesting to identify the eventual level of performance; more interesting even may be the search for indicators of how the learning process may be continued and where that continuation may lead to. Formulated more simple, this would refer to finding the answer to a question like: How competent may I become? The variety of functions does not necessarily imply that assessment tools need to vary accordingly; it may well be that one tool suits more, if not all purposes, provided it is presented with an appropriate user guide explaining the user, how the tool may be applied, shared, discussed, applied and interpreted.
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Competence levels/levels of mastery The assessment of competences when focusing on the actual performance or reconstruction of performances, is facing the challenge of finding the right dimensions and criteria for assessment. Stated in another way this implies that we are searching for a kind of taxonomies for the element include in the right triangle of the competence model. These dimensions will refer to the level of a person’s performance; the complexity of the context in which this performance is demonstrated and the level of quality of the performance. Action levels As for the actions we have created the following provisional scale (level one is this table is the lowest level. Contrary to the original document from June 2013 we no decide no longer to distinguish between levels of action. We have chosen to reduce the complexity of the model by assuming that there is just the action, the level of which is determined by the quality of it and the complexity of the situation in which it is applied. Furthermore we have chosen to reduce the number of levels to five distinct levels. Levels of contextual complexity As for the level of complexity of contexts we have identified variables that may affect the level of complexity, however, they show no ranking nor sequence: •
Number of people involved (one to one)/ group/organization/community;
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Heterogeneity (multiple perspectives);
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Complexity of tools/infrastructure/logistics involved;
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Time constraints;
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Responsibility/accountability;
• Social and organizational complexity. So we have searched for another way to indicate complexity and came to the following provisional level indications. Again we start with the lowest level of complexity level 1 and then make it more complex towards level 8.
Levels of Quality For the level of quality we did the same thing; first of all we summed up the elements that might be considered when deciding upon the level of quality of a persons actions/performance. Included in any competence will be qualities in the following domains (EU reference framework, 2007) 1. Critical thinking (reflects upon your actions Does consider alternatives, turns to theory/experience/evidence) 2. Creativity (Comes up with new suggestions, invents new actions or things) 3. Initiative (Sees opportunities, makes the first move, comes up with ideas, takes up new tasks) 4. Problem solving (is involved in solving the problems, overcomes the obstacles. acts strategically. Finds new solutions) 5. Risk assessment (Is aware of risks involved, takes
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risks, is estimating the risk before taking actions) 6. Decision making (Takes decisions, identifies what decisions should be made) 7. Constructive management of feelings (Keeps up the good spirit, overcomes frustration easily,maintains a good level of energy and motivation) 8. Adequate use of resources (Has enough background and expertise to deal with the situation, knows when to make use of this expertise) 9. Effectiveness (Accomplishes what needs to be done Can do what the situation requires) 10. Impact (Makes things happen, turns activity into a success, makes things work) Again, however there is no sense of direction or ranking in this list. That is why we tried to
develop. Nevertheless it must be possible to rate an activity on each of the identified variables on a scale from 1‐5 and then identify the overall quality level keeping the three criteria of autonomy, effectiveness and impact in mind.
Back to key competences To describe the competences we elaborated each of the corners of the triangles model for each of the key competences. After having done that the performance triangles have been summarized in short lists of competence domains (for the three domain specific competences) and in key qualities in a brief in sum list for each of the competences. So to create the assessment the next step was to use each of these shortlisted domains/key qualities, then to position them in a particular setting/context. In the list examples of such settings are included. And then to relate them to the levels of complexity of contexts and the levels of quality, as operationalized above. For each of the Key competences we now have elaborated one set of five situations of increasing complexity.
The Grundtvig Project Vintage Vintage is a European project funded through the Grundtvig action of the Lifelong Learning Programme. The acronym means “online tool for self eValuatIoN of key competences in adulT AGE”: in fact, the project aims to develop and test an online tool for the self‐evaluation of key competences, to be used by adult learners involved in non vocational adult education learning pathways. The project has started in January 2013 and will last two years. It brings together partners from 6 European countries: Italy, Austria, Germany, Vivamus id nisi vel purus gravida bibendum. Ireland, Sweden and The Netherlands. Duis nec neque. In sem diam, convallis Project website: eleifend, rutrum id, rutrum et, justo. Cum http://vintage.euproject.org/ sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis Info: vintage@learningcom.it parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Etiam malesuada eros at mi.
September, 2013 Jaap van Lakerveld, Joost de Zoete and Ingrid Gussen Grundtvig Project VINTAGE
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
References
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Dam van, K., Schipper, M., Runhaar, P. (2010). Developing a competency‐based framework for teachers’ entrepreneurial behaviour. Teaching and Teacher Education 26, 965‐971. Dochy, F., Heylen, L. & Van de Mosselaer, H. (2002). Assessment in onderwijs. Nieuwe toetsvormen en examinering in studentgericht onderwijs en competentiegericht onderwijs. Uitgeverij LEMMA BV: Utrecht European Commission (2007). Key Competences for lifelong learning – European Reference Framework. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/publ/pdf/ll‐learning/keycomp_en.pdf European Commission (2010). Key Competences for Life Long Learning, European Reference Framework. Vivamus id nisi vel purus gravida bibendum. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/publ/pdf/ll‐learning/keycomp_en.pdf Duis nec neque. In sem diam, convallis 28/01/2013] eleifend, rutrum id, rutrum et, justo. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis Fransson, Goran, Jaap van Lakerveld, Valdek Rohtma, (2009). To be a facilitator of in‐service learning: parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. challenges, options and professional context: in Becoming a teacher (p 75‐88). Etiam malesuada eros at mi. Gordon, J. et al. (2009). Key competences in Europe: Opening doors for lifelong learners across the school curriculum and teacher education. CASE‐Center for Social and Economic Research on behalf of CASE Network: Warsaw http://ec.europa.eu/education/more‐information/doc/keyreport_en.pdf Hipkins, R. (2007). Assessing key competencies: Why would we? How could we? Learning Media Limited: New Zealand http://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/Key_Competencies.pdf Lakerveld, J.A.van, Nadine Engels (2010), CLIMATE, Contextual Learning In Management And Teaching in Europe, PLATO, Leiden Lakerveld, J.A van, Gussen I, (ed.) (2011) Acquiring Key competences through heritage education, Alden Biesen, Belgium. Lecas, Jean Claude (2006) Behaviourism and the mechanization of the mind, C.R. Biologies 329 (2006) 386‐397, www.sciencedirect.com Lindsay, P. H. and D. A. Norman. Human Information Processing. Academic press, New York, 1977. Palinscar, A.S. (1998), Social constructivist perspectives on teaching and learning, Annual review of psychology, 1998. 49 345‐75 Pepper, D. (2011) Assessing Key Competences across the Curriculum — and Europe. European Journal of Education, Vol. 46, No. 3 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465‐3435.2011.01484.x/abstract Säävälä, T. (2004). Working group B “key competences”. Key competences for lifelong learning. A European reference framework November 2004 http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/2010/doc/basicframe.pdf Siemens, George (2005), Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age, geraadpleegd via http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism Valcke, Martin (2007), Onderwijskunde als ontwerpwetenschap, Academia press, Gent, p193‐194. Vroon, Pieter en Douwe Draaisma (1985): De mens als metafoor: over vergelijkingen van mens en machine in filosofie en psychologie, Baarn
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With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union
Grundtvig Project VINTAGE ‐ online tool for self eValuatIoN of key competences in adulT AGE Reference: 527349‐LLP‐1‐2012‐1‐IT‐GRUNDTVIG‐GMP Grant Agreement n. n. 2012‐4192/001‐001
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