2. The issue
• The ‘new’ space of education in Europe
• The plethora of terminology
• Whose competences ?
• Challenges and implications
• Suggestions
3. Competence? Competency? Skill?
• ‘Competence’ can be seen in the Greek notion of
‘arete’, meaning excellence, in the sense of being the
best
• also in the Latin term ‘virtus’, a kind of moral
excellence
• generally understood as being concerned with ‘what
people can do rather than what they know’.
• It can be attributed to individuals, social groups or
institutions.
• The term has a large variety of meanings, and it can be
captured by the terms ‘ability’, ‘aptitude’, ‘capability’,
‘effectiveness’ and ‘skill’ (Weinert, 2001).
4. • Competency: denotes discrete skills and
activities which individuals can perform.
• The terms are often used interchangeably
without an appreciation of their different
meanings (Allan, 2011).
5. Establishing a European EDUspace
Council of Europe, 1996:
• Political and social competencies such as the
capacity to accept responsibilities, to
participate in group decisions, to resolve
conflicts in a non-violent manner, and to play
a part in running and improving democratic
institutions.
• the capacity for critical judgment with regard
to information disseminated by the mass
media and advertisers.
6. European Reference Framework key competences:
knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to context
• communication in the mother tongue; in foreign
languages; mathematical competence and basic
competences in science and technology; digital
competence; learning to learn; social and civic;
sense of initiative and entrepreneurship; and
cultural awareness and expression
• All emphasize critical thinking, creativity, initiative,
problem solving, risk assessment, decision taking,
and constructive management of feelings.
• Any further interpretation is left to Member States
in the specific contexts of their education systems.
7. Joint education space: a feasible task?
• Survey (Council of Europe, 2008):
• In many parts of Europe initial teacher
education did not adequately prepare
beginning teachers to cope with the diversity
which they met in their classrooms.
• In analyzing the concepts, principles and
challenges for teacher education, project
participants identified a number of problems
which made the development of effective
teacher education for diversity a complex task.
8. • OECD report (2009)
• Survey (17 EU countries): focus on transversal
skills or competencies (i.e. creativity, critical
thinking etc.)
• Although different in formulation, they recall
some aspects of the EU key competences and
most respondents considered them to have been
incorporated into their country’s policies for
compulsory education.
However:
• few countries appeared to have specifically
defined the terms or developed clear assessment
policies in relation to them (Pepper, 2011)
9. Challenges & implications
• The need to address knowledge, skills and attitudes;
the application of competences to a range of real or
authentic contexts; the threshold at which a certain
level of competence is acquired (Pepper, 2011, 341).
• The specification of key competences in sufficient
detail to plan and assess learning
Consequently:
• Varying interpretations of competence between and
within countries (according to national
context, sector, education level)
• Varying unpacking of learning outcomes in relation to
competences
10. (Re-)visiting competences?
• Digital competence:
• involves the confident and critical use of
Information Society Technology (IST) for work,
leisure and communication.
• is underpinned by basic skills in ICT: the use of
computers to retrieve, assess, store, produce,
present and exchange information, and to
communicate and participate in collaborative
networks via the Internet
(source: CASE report, 2009, 44)
12. • netLIT
Digital
• VCommuLIT
Social & civic • COLLskills
Sense of initiative • Leadership
Cultural • Intercultural
awareness dialogue approach
13. Co-creation Co-llaboration
Network Global/
based translocal
encounters understanding
Pedagogy
14. • In order to empower young people to make
effective use of networks, capitalizing on their
benefits while avoiding some of their more
obvious pitfalls, it is essential to begin
fostering network literacy in educational
institutions (Pegrum, 2010, 346).
15. ‘Literacy’: the need to develop a range of skills to effectively process
and express meaning in a plurality of communication channels
• ability to
– build and maintain large and diverse networks
– supplement social connections by consciously and
deliberately tapping into networks of expertise
– identify, follow or friending appropriate
individuals & groups
– gain access to informed perspectives and
specialized information.
Formal learning Critical thinking
competences
16. (Virtual) (Learning) Community (?)
• social aggregation and personal relationships (Rheingold)
• work across space, time and organizational boundaries
(Lipnack & Stamps, 1997; Mowshowitz, 1997)
• common purpose (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997)
• "desocialization" (i.e., less frequent interaction with
humans in traditional settings) (Lee et al., 2004) .
• impersonality of virtual networks (the dystopia
argument; Calhoun, 1991)
