Abstract:

The development of educators' digital competences has been on the political and educational agenda for some years, but the situation on the ground, as several studies have revealed, continues to show important gaps in this field. The recent experience of remote education that many countries had to implement due to Covid19 evidence some of these gaps. In fact, the work in the area of digital competences must be permanent and in the European panorama we believe that the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu, 2017) is a fundamental guiding document.

Based on the DigCompEdu framework and integrated in a European project (E-SLP – European Short Learning Programmes for continuous professional development and lifelong learning) a team of Universidade Aberta (Open University, Portugal) developed a module called “Facilitating and Assessing Learners’ Digital Competences”. This specific module focuses especially on one of the areas covered by the framework (area 4) - Assessment. This area addresses a field that raises several difficulties, combining technologies with assessment, which is traditionally a sensitive domain in teaching and learning.

In our paper we intend to analyse the design and implementation of the course. The module aims that the participants understand how digital technologies can enhance existing assessment strategies, how they can be used to create or to facilitate innovative assessment approaches, and how digital technologies can be used in monitoring learner progress, facilitating feedback and allowing educators to assess and adapt their teaching strategies. The conceptual framework of the module is based on the ideas of assessment for learning and sustainable assessment, in relation to real and professional life, which are debated in an introductory topic and that we examine in our paper.

Concerning the implementation and results of the course, the study takes a qualitative approach (Bowen, 2006; Creswell, 2007) that investigates the work developed by the 20 teachers that have participated in the module. These educators are from different countries: Portugal, Finland, Germany and Turkey. Digital evaluation strategies presented in e-portfolios are analyzed, as well as the interactions that occurred in the virtual forums. We examine the diversity of digital technologies that are used and the proposed strategies in relation to the different educational settings where the participants in the module act as educators (from basic education to non-formal education).

Preliminary results show that the participants reveal some difficulties in identifying forms of digital assessment appropriate to the pedagogical scenarios they present. The most used digital tools are automatic assessment tools (like quizzes). Peer assessment and self-assessment strategies supported in rubrics are elements that also have a significant presence in the evaluation strategies that are presented. These elements reveal that training in the area of digital assessment is really extremely relevant and that teachers need to explore different digital technologies in order to adequate them to the competences to be developed and assessed.

Keywords:

DigCompEdu, Learning, Digital assessment, Teacher education.